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Meme of the time: four lads in jeans, Birmingham 2019
Word of the week: Aside from the literal outer layer of the ray-finned slippery fish, this evocative, slightly suggestive 19th-century slang means very tight trousers, while this week’s bonus word, excruciators, points to the experience of wearing very tight shoes
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A gnomon is the part of a sundial that casts a shadow
Word of the week: From the Ancient Greek, γνώμων (gnṓmōn)this pointed noun literally means one that knows or examines, but it is specifically the part of a sundial that casts a shadow as well as referring to other mathematical terms
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Jenticulate with the jentacular in the morning …
Word of the week: A tasty noun and an adjective all associated with the first meal of the day - one means to take breakfast, the other, with a variant spelling, describes anything related to that meal. Both derive from the Latin noun ientaculum, meaning a breakfast taken immediately on getting up
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Homer and Bart Simpson in a regular moment of spanwhengling
Word of the week: This colourfully archaic English verb, thought to have origins in the Leeds and immediate Yorkshire area, means to shake or knock something violently
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Dance craze: depiction of the first quadrille in England at Almack’s in 1816
Word of the week: A sprightly, sociable18th- and 19th-century dance form that sprung from folk contredanses, it comprises four couples in rectangular formation and was all the range in polite society in the Victorian age in Europe and colonies, and is linked to American square dancing
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The xaque-xaque has many alternative names …
Word of the week: Sometimes also xique-xique, a wonderfully evocative, onomatopoeic term for any kind of Brazilian rattle instrument, but when used in English referring more specifically to the maracas rattle
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Kassav’ in full swing in 2009, including founder member Jacob Desvarieux, left, who died in 2021
Word of the week: In need of some virtual sunshine? Zouk is a dance music movement hailing from the French Caribbean in the early 80s, spearheaded by the pioneering band Kassav’, their zouk béton of Martinique and Guadeloupe originally featuring percussive, fast tempo with loud horn section and later synth keyboards
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A dundun set of three drums from the Playing For Change Foundation
Word of the week: These evocative, onomatopoeic variants are generic names for a family of West African talking drums, particularly in the Yoruba culture of Nigeria, Guinea, talking drums that mimic human speech, rope-tuned and cylindrical with a rawhide skin at both ends, and played with a stick
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Yatga player Altantsetseg Badgar
Word of the week: Related to the Chinese guzheng, this beautiful and delicate sounding instrument is a traditional fingernail-plucked Mongolian zither, the other hand applying pressure to strings to change the notes
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William Shenstone: poet, pioneer landscape gardener and an early user of this flowery word
Word of the week: One of the longest in English, it’s the action or habit of estimating something as worthless or unimportant, but is it worth exploring this through the prism of song lyrics? Perhaps …
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Three recent books that are more than relevant to the current word
Word of the week: About whom could this apply right now? It's a word for extreme, foolish pride or dangerous overconfidence, often in combination with arrogance that tends to lead to a fall, and a dangerous thing in the head of someone with power who refuses to acknowledge it.
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Autumn is a kexy time of year …
The figure portrayed on this famous record cover could be described as a practitioner of nosism
Word of the Week: It sounds like a strange religion or nasal habit, but from Latin ‘nos’, this is the practice of using the ‘we’ pronoun when really only referring oneself in action or opinion - it’s more common in song than ‘we’ might imagine
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XTC like to talk about the foppotee, but not always in a derogatory way
Word of the week: It’s a very rare and also pleasant sounding, poetic word that was briefly used in the 17th century, but is in fact derogatory, pertaining to simpleton. It could well describe much behaviour in modern life too. But in songs, is it always wrong to be a foppotee?
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Little Richard, great deliverer of hirquitalliency
Word of the week: This obscure 17th-century word, from the Latin hirquitallīre means to acquire a strong voice (from hircus male-goat), but when used, pertains to a bleating, squeaky or full-throated cries of delight. There very well be song good examples …
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Serial illeist Gollum from Lord of the Rings
Word of the week: A mark of self-grandeur or insecure self-consciousness? Narcissism or objectivity? An illeist is someone who talks about themselves in the third person. But how does that manifest in song?
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Almost murklins time …
Word of the week: Not to be confused with the pubic wig worn by prostitutes of old and other diseased ridden individuals (the merkin), this rare adjective from the 16th and 17th century simply means ‘in the dark’, an umbrella term to accompany activity
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Old orgiophantine work
Word of the week: It sounds like a colossal beast, and indeed much flesh is involved, except this word pertains to a person or presides over, and organises an orgy. Quite how to direct proceedings once it starts is anyone’s guess …
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Gretchen Menn, composer, solo artist, and member of the band Zepparella might well be associated with this word
Word of the week: It has been in use since the 15th century, derives from the Latin adjective pulcher, and while not exactly onomatopoeic, pertains, like the noun pulchritude, to physical beauty or ‘comeliness’.
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That’s one quomodocunquizing method …
Word of the week: It's a bit of a mouthful, but also an adjective describing that which makes money in any possible way, from the Latin quomodocunque, and of course if not actually using the word, there are a few songs on the subject
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