CORRIEMUCHLOCH (n.)
Word describing the kind of person who can make a complete mess of a simple job like walking down a corridor.
CORSTORPHINE (n.)
A very short peremptory service held in monasteries prior to teatime to offer thanks for the benediction of digestive biscuits.
COTTERSTOCK (n.)
A piece of wood used to stir paint and thereafter stored uselessly in a shed in perpetuity.
CRAIL (n. mineral)
Crail is a common kind of rock or gravel found widely across the British Isles. Each individual stone (due to an as yet undiscovered gravitational property) is charged with 'negative buoyancy'. This means that no matter how much crail you remove from the garden, more of it will rise to the surface. Crail is much employed by the Royal Navy for making the paperweights and ashtrays used inside submarines.
CRANLEIGH (n.)
A mood of irrational irritation with everyone and everything.
CROMARTY (n.)
The brittle sludge which clings to the top of ketchup bottles and plastic tomatoes in nasty cafes.
CURRY MALLET (n.)
A large wooden or rubber cub which poachers use to despatch cats or other game which they can only sell to Indian resturants. For particulary small cats the price obtainable is not worth the cost of expending ammunition.
DALRYMPLE (n.)
Dalarymples are the things you pay extra for on pieces of hand-made craftwork - the rough edges, the paint smudges and the holes in the glazing.
DAMNAGLAUR (n.)
A certain facial expression which actors are required to demonstrate their mastery of before they are allowed to play MacBeth.
DARENTH (n.)
Measure = 0.0000176 mg. Defined as that amount of margarine capable of covering one hundred slices of bread to the depth of one molecule. This is the legal maximum allowed in sandwich bars in Greater London.
DEAL (n.)
The gummy substance found between damp toes.
DEEPING ST NICHOLAS (n.)
What street-wise kids do at Christmas. They hide on the rooftops waiting for Santa Claus so that if he arrives and goes down the chimney, they can rip stuff off from his sleigh.
DES MOINES (pl.n.)
The two little lines which come down from your nose.
DETCHANT (n.)
That part of a hymn (usually a few notes at the end of a verse) where the tune goes so high or low that you suddenly have to change octaves to accommodate it.
DETCHANT (n.)
(Of the hands or feet.) Prunelike after an overlong bath.
DIDCOT (n.)
The tiny oddly-shaped bit of card which a ticket inspector cuts out of a ticket with his clipper for no apparent reason. It is a little-known fact that the confetti at Princess Margaret's wedding was made up of thousands of didcots collected by inspectors on the Royal Train. DIDLING (participial vb.)
The process of trying to work out who did it when reading a whodunnit, and trying to keep your options open so that when you find out you can allow yourself to think that you knew perfectly well who it was all along.
DILLYTOP (n.)
The kind of bath plug which for some unaccountable reason is actually designed to sit on top of the hole rather than fit into it.
DIBBLE (vb.)
To try to remove a sticky something from one hand with the other, thus causing it to get stuck to the other hand and eventually to anything else you try to remove it with.
DITHERINGTON (n)
Sudden access to panic experienced by one who realises that he is being drawn inexorably into a clabby (q.v.) conversion, i.e. one he has no hope of enjoying, benefiting from or understanding.
DITTISHAM (n.)
Any music you hear on the radio to which you have to listen very carefully to determine whether it is an advertising jingle or a bona fide record.
DOBWALLS (pl.n.)
The now hard-boiled bits of nastiness which have to be prised off crockery by hand after it has been through a dishwasher.
DOBWALLS (pl.n.)
The now hard-boiled bits of nastiness which have to be prised off crockery by hand after it has been through a dishwasher.
DOCKERY (n.)
Facetious behaviour adopted by an accused man in the mistaken belief that this will endear him to the judge.
DOGDYKE (vb.)
Of dog-owners, to adopt the absurd pretence that the animal shitting in the gutter is nothing to do with them.
DOLEGELLAU (n.)
The clump, or cluster, of bored, quietly enraged, mildly embarrassed men waiting for their wives to come out of a changing room in a dress shop.
DORCHESTER (n.)
A throaty cough by someone else so timed as to obscure the crucial part of the rather amusing remark you've just made.
DORRIDGE (n.)
Technical term for one of the lame excuses written in very small print on the side of packets of food or washing powder to explain why there's hardly anything inside. Examples include 'Contents may have settled in transit' and 'To keep each biscuit fresh they have been individually wrapped in silver paper and cellophane and separated with corrugated lining, a cardboard flap, and heavy industrial tyres'.
DRAFFAN (n.)
An infuriating person who always manages to look much more dashing that anyone else by turning up unshaven and hangover at a formal party.
DREBLEY (n.)
Name for a shop which is supposed to be witty but is in fact wearisome, e.g. 'The Frock Exchange', 'Hair Apparent', etc.
DROITWICH (n.)
A street dance. The two partners approach from opposite directions and try politely to get out of each other's way. They step to the left, step to the right, apologise, step to the left again, apologise again, bump into each other and repeat as often as unnecessary.
DUBUQUE (n.)
A look given by a superior person to someone who has arrived wearing the wrong sort of shoes.
DUDOO (n.)
The most deformed potato in any given collection of potatoes.
DUGGLEBY (n.)
The person in front of you in the supermarket queue who has just unloaded a bulging trolley on to the conveyor belt and is now in the process of trying to work out which pocket they left their cheque book in, and indeed which pair of trousers.
DULEEK (n.)