More liffery

If you recall, we are taking words down from signposts and assigning useful definitions to them to describe phenomena in human experience for which, until now, no word existed. All the words that follow are genuine East Anglian placenames. I make no apology for any repetitions: I have just come back from the dentist's.

sporle
The mass of bits occasioned by machine-washing a garment in the pocket of which you indavertently left several used tissues.

helhaughton
An angry interchange between a London taxi driver and anyone whose driving he derides, ie, everyone else on the road. Produces such gems as "I was going to call you a bastard, but I can see you are too fricking ugly to have been born of woman."

bintree
Fascinated by the proposition that every failure to find a purple swan contributes positively to the proposition that all swans are white, Tolkien began a collection of seven-letter words to contribute evidence to his proposition that there was no anagram of his name in the English language. The only reason "bintree" is remembered is that, having trawled through the dictionary to this point, he gave up and wrote Lord of the Rings instead. Pity, he might have eventually reached klonite.

fring
The sound made as a run or ladder occurs in a lady's stocking, a sound that only a few lucky men have ever heard.

spixworth
A landlubber, the sort who cannot tell his starboard from his larboard, or his stow from his prern . From a passenger on the QEII called Spixworth who was thrown overboard by the crew after demonstrating his complete misunderstanding of the purpose of the poop deck.

hengrave (joc)
An eggcup.

high kelling
Shouting encouragement to a would-be suicide to jump off a tall building.

costessy
Descriptive of a business transaction in which each party believes he has screwed the other. Coined by Peter Mandelson to describe the alleged deal done between Blair and Brown in a restaurant before the 97 election.

runcton bottom
A buttockless bum, especially the flat bums of geriatric linedancers.

old bottom
A buttockful bum on a geriatric linedancer, inactive but pleasingly plump.

little hautbois
A piccolo.

kenratt
A knowledgeable rodent, the kind that never enters a trap.

blackwater
Adulterated Guinness.

beetley
A word coined to describe Denis Healey's eyebrows.

guestwick
The duvet on the bed in a guest bedroom, designed to cover the shoulders or the feet, but not both. A device to ensure that guests will not stay long.

weasenham lyngs
Insects which specialise in dying inside lampshades.

thurning
In painting, rearranging the parts of the human body for artistic effect. A school of painting inspired by Picasso and the game called "Pin the Tail on the Donkey".

leonard childs
An undersized adult who is frequently molested by paedophiles. Better, perhaps, than being overlooked.

fustyweal
The practice of sniffing the armpit or crotch of a garment in order to determine whether it is good for one more day.

brisley
The stubble on a bag lady's chin and upper lip, the sort of unsightly growth that a true bag gentleman would never draw attention to.