In Competition No. 2420 you were invited to invent words describing something familiar which fill a need in the English language.
The germ of this competition was a book called The Meaning of Tingo which assembles ‘extraordinary words from around the world’, from which I learnt that the Japanese have a single word to describe ‘a woman who appears pretty when seen from behind but not from the front’ and another very useful one which means ‘to try out a new sword on a passer-by’. I make way now for your own glorious neologisms. Each item wins its inventor £4, and Nicholas Hodgson gets the bonus fiver.
Nompathy: concern felt by public for victim of crime whom they don’t know but who is referred to by his or her first name by the media
Backdraper: person who seeks to give the impression that he is at work by putting his jacket on the back of his chair
Blunk: person one wishes to ridicule but is reluctant to do so because of a disability
Meteritis: belief that value can always be quantified, exemplified by unhealthy obsession with targets, league tables etc
Regrats: repeated expressions of thanks, e.g., ‘thank you for your thank you letter’
Nicholas Hodgson
Wassony: inability to recall accurately the previous performance by an actor (as in: ‘Wasn’t ’e the bloke in …?’)
Viddunce: sense of personal failure when unable to grasp basic principles of programming the video
Umblings: inadequate conversational responses (e.g., to dentist during oral examination)
Dejavitude: the sense of having seen a film before, possibly in French with different actors, plot and ending
Sofage: the amount retrieved per annum from under sofa cushions
D.A. Prince
Astropub: ‘rebranded’ or ‘themed’ public house with as much atmosphere as a remote star
Accelebration: the rapid rise to fame and fortune of a talentless nonentity
Neurostalgia: reflecting painfully on past pleasures now abolished by age
Xenotopia: retirement abroad (or the dream of)
Virginferno: traumatising experience of rail travel
Basil Ransome-Davies
Decap: to print names without capital letters —the dream of graphic designers everywhere
Sminkle: to smile with an all-too conscious, eye-wrinkling twinkle
Opinion-cobblers: slot-filling journalists who pass comment on the news much as they might pass wind or water
Danglion: the recorded telephone message that encouragingly says your call is in a queue
Effumate: to deliver a coarse, abusive response to a request
W.J. Webster
Crevassage: coins and other small finds from the depths of the sofas
Cuckoopons: ‘money off’ coupons which one feels obliged to save carefully until the expiry date is passed
Postruckled: a coat or cardie pushed up at the back, thus indicating where the wearer has lately been seated
Soduko: the final line of a Su Doku puzzle, found to contain a duplicated number
Yawgurn: the strange facial stretch concealing a yawn
Prue Sheldon
Chatterbasket: a woman who holds up a supermarket queue by gossiping
Dominica Roberts
Faggadocio: open defiance of anti-smoking regulations
Hugh King
Stopulism: the policy of banning everything people say should be banned
Philip Dacre
Skipthank: to pass rapidly through a door held open by another person without acknowledgment
Godfrey Bullard
Noughtism: condition in children of having no psychological, educational, social or behavioural abnormality whatever
Philip Trueman
Bragsheet: family newsletter sent out around Christmas
John O’Bryne
Retrogrovel: a meaningless apology for history made by a politician
Ralph Rochester
Orcaforka: the Japanese right to eat whalemeat
Sue Taylor
Boretrekkers: tourists determined you shall hear every detail of their travels
Michael Birt
Voldemort: the decibel level at which a neighbour’s stereo makes you want to throttle him
Robert Johnston
Meemoir: self-obsessed autobiography
Philip Skelsey
Mibble: to speak and eat at the same time
Bill Greenwell
Broodcasting: endlessly talking about one’s children
Paul Griffin
Homoprobia: the delicate questioning necessary to establish whether a new acquaintance is gay or not
Brian Murdoch
No. 2423: Are we downhearted?
‘The rain comes pattering out of the sky,/I’m a Wall soldier, I don’t know why,’ grumbled Auden’s Italian legionary posted to the Scottish borders. You are invited to write a poem (maximum 16 lines) in the voice of a fed-up soldier, of any country or date, far from home. Entries to ‘Competition No. 2423’ by 15 December.
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