Douglas Adams - The Meaning of Liff

TREWOFFE (n.)

A very thick and heavy drift of snow balanced precariously on the edoge of a door porch waiting for what it judges to be the correct moment to fall. From the ancient Greek legend 'The Treewofe of Damocles'.

TRISPEN (n.)

A form of intelligent grass. It grows a single, tough stalk and makes its home on lawns. When it sees the lawnmower coming it lies down and pops up again after it has gone by.

TROSSACHS (pl.n.)

The useless epaulettes on an expensive raincoat.

TUAMGRANEY (n.)

A hideous wooden ornament that people hang over the mantelpiece to prove they've been to Africa.

TULSA (n.)

A slurp of beer which has accidentally gone down your shirt collar.

TUMBY (n.)

The involuntary abdominal gurgling which fills the silence following someone else's intimate personal revelation.

TWEEDSMUIR (collective n.)

The name given to the extensive collection of hats kept in the downstairs lavatory which don't fit anyone in the family.

TWEMLOW GREEN (n.)

The colour of some of Nigel Rees's trousers, worn in the mistaken belief that they go rather well with his sproston green (q.v.) jackets.

TWOMILEBORRIS (n.)

A popular Ease European outdoor game in which the first person to reach the front of the meat queue wins, and the losers have to forfeit their bath plugs.

TYNE and WEAR (nouns)

The 'Tyne' is the small priceless or vital object accidentally dropped on the floor (e.g. diamond tie clip, contact lens) and the 'wear' is the large immovable object (e.g. Welsh dresser, car-crusher) that it shelters under.

ULLAPOOL (n.)

The spittle which builds up on the floor of the Royal Opera House.

ULLINGSWICK (n.)

An over-developed epiglottis found in middle-aged coloraturas.

ULLOCK (n.)

The correct name for either of the deaf Scandinavian tourists who are standing two abreast in front of you on the escalator.

UMBERLEIGH (n.)

The awful moment which follows a dorchester (q.v.) when a speaker weighs up whether to repeat an amusing remark after nobody laughed the last time. To be on the horns of an umberleigh is to wonder whether people didn't hear the remark, or whether they did hear it and just didn't think it was funny, which was why somebody coughed.

UPOTTERY (n.)

That part of a kitchen cupboard which contains an unnecessarily large number of milk jugs.

UTTOXETER (n.)

A small but immensely complex mechanical device which is essentially the 'brain' of a modern coffee vending machine, and which enables the machine to take its own decisions.

VALLETTA (n.)

On ornate head-dress or loose garment worn by a person in the belief that it renders then invisibly native and not like a tourist at all. People who don huge colonial straw collie hats with 'I Luv Lagos' on them in Nigeria, or fat solicitors from Tonbridge on holiday in Malaya who insist on appearing in the hotel lobby wearing a sarong know what we're on about.

VANCOUVER (n.)

The technical name for one of those huge trucks with whirling brushes on the bottom used to clean streets.

VENTNOR (n.)

One who, having been visited as a child by a mysterious gypsy lady, is gifted with the strange power of being able to operate the air-nozzles above aeroplane seats.

VIRGINSTOW (n.)

A Durex machine which doesn't have the phrase 'So was the Titanic' scrawled on it. The word has now fallen into disuse.

VOBSTER (n.)

A strain of perfectly healthy rodent which develops cancer the moment it enter a laboratory.

WARLEGGAN (n. archaic)

One who does not approve of araglins (q.v.)

WATH (n.)

The rage of Roy Jenkins.

WEEM (n.)

The tools with which a dentist can inflict the greatest pain. Formerly, which tool this was dependent upon the imagination and skill of the individual dentist, though now, with technological advances, weems can be bought specially.

WEMBLEY (n.)

The hideous moment of confirmation that the disaster presaged in the ely (q.v.) has actually struck.

WENDENS AMBO (n.)

(Veterinary term.) The operation to trace an object swallowed by a cow through all its seven stomachs. Hence, also (1) en expedition to discover where the exits are in the Barican Centre, and (2) a search through the complete works of Chaucer for all the rude bits.

WEST WITTERING (participial vb.)

The uncontrollable twitching which breaks out when you're trying to get away from the most boring person at a party.

WETWANG (n.)

A moist penis.

WHAPLODE DROVE (n.)

A homicidal golf stroke.

WHASSET (n.)

A business car in you wallet belonging to someone whom you have no recollection of meeting.

WHISSENDINE (n.)

The nose which occurs (often by night) in a strange house, which is too short and too irregular for you ever to be able to find out what it is and where it comes from.

WIDDICOMBE (n.)

The sort of person who impersonates trim phones.

WIGAN (n.)

If, when talking to someone you know has only one leg, you're trying to treat then perfectly casually and normally, but find to your horror that your conversion is liberally studded with references to (a) Long John Silver, (b) Hopalong Cassidy, (c) The Hockey Cokey, (d) 'putting your foot in it', (e) 'the last leg of the UEFA competition', you are said to have committed a wigan. The word is derived from the fact that sub-editors at ITN used to manage to mention the name of either the town Wigan, or Lord Wigg, in every fourth script that Reginald Bosanquet was given to read.

WIKE (vb.)

To rip a piece of sticky plaster off your skin as fast as possible in the hope that it will (a) show how brave you are, and (b) not hurt.

WILLIMANTIC (adj.)

Of a person whose hearth is in the wrong place (i.e. between their legs).

WIMBLEDON (n.)

That last drop which, no matter how much you shake it, always goes down your trouser leg.

WINKLEY (n.)

A lost object which turns up immediately you've gone and bought a replacement for it.

WINSTON-SALEM (n.)

A person in a restaurant who suggest to their companions that they should split the cost of the meal equally, and then orders two packets of cigarettes on the bill.

WIVENHOE (n.)

The cry of alacrity with which a sprightly eighty-year-old breaks the ice on the lake when going for a swim on Christmas Eve.

WOKING (participial vb.)

Standing in the kitchen wondering what you came in here for.

WOOLFARDISHWORTHY (n.)

A mumbled, mispronounced or misheard word in a song, speech or play. Derived from the well-known mumbles passage in Hamlet :

'...and the spurns,

That patient merit of the unworthy takes

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who woolfardisworthy

To grunt and sweat under a weary life?'

WORGRET (n.)

A kind of poltergeist which specialises in stealing new copies of the A-Z from your car.

WORKSOP (n.)

A person who never actually gets round to doing anything because he spends all his time writing out lists headed 'Things to Do (Urgent)'.