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Johnson and Trump. Both deal heavily in ackamarakus, not always with success
Word of the week: It’s a rare, slang noun that could easily describe the speeches of several prominent politicians – meaningless activity just for show, deceptive nonsense and bluff. But how might it show up in song lyrics?
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It’s all in the mind. A map of the strange theories of the bumposopher, or phrenologist
Word of the week: A delightful looking and sounding noun, and an alternative to bumpologist, this is a humorous, gently derogatory mid-19th-century word for a practitioner in the highly dubious, once-popular pseudoscience of phrenology
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But what happens after 22 miles?
Word of the week: Usually our entries are historical obscurities, but this verb is not yet in the formal lexicon, has only entered language via online circulation, yet has still inspired recent music and its definition harks back to great traditions
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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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Short-tailed gymnure
Word of the week: Survival concerns? Maybe be more gymnure. Small, elusive and nocturnal, it's not a rat, nor a shrew, but a furry hedgehog, a Galericinae from the Erinaceidae family, with acute senses, especially of smell, and likely resembles the earliest form of mammal
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Miso soup
Word of the week: A derivative of the French jus for juice, this rarely tasted mid-17th-century word means full of broth or soup, a deliciously evocative adjective that bubbles up a variety of associations, but does it appear in song?
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Cammelia japonica knosps, pushing out like pursed lips, are some of the first to open in the late winter period
Word of the week: Winter may still have a tight grip in the western hemisphere as spring slowly stirs, but this noun is the highly descriptive name for an unopened flower bud, and also the architectural term for bulbish knobs of a similar design
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A 3D LED music-themed lamp
Word of the week: It’s an archaic, late-Victorian word some might imagine to be associated with pugilism, but more obviously, and yet poetically means the shimmeringly fragile and hopefully beautiful art of lamp care and decoration
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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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Rick Moranis is confronted by the plant, played by Levi Stubbs, in Little Shop of Horrors (1986).
Word of the week: Rare, archaic, evocative, and great to get lips and tongue around, it means to satisfy or satiate a hungry person, usually in the context of food, but of course in song lyrics that can mean a whole lot more
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A woundikins moment in Family Guy …
Word of the week: It’s an archaic, comically silly swearword, an exclamation of pain or exasperation that was only used for a brief period in the 19th century, but where does this kind of thing relate song lyrics?
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The yaffingale, or green woodpecker
Word of the week: It’s an archaic, southern English name for the European green woodpecker, picus viridis, that species of beautiful colour that taps on softer wood trunks to feed and nest, but how does such a bird come up in song?
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Like a trumpet, but not a trumpet …
Word of the week: It’s similar to a trumpet, but isn’t. What’s the difference, who plays it, and on what songs and pieces. All is revealed here in a blow-by-blow account, featuring artists including Miles Davis, Bruce Springsteen and The Pogues
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Güiro - used in more genres than you might imagine
Word of the week: Used in Latin American music, but also by artists from David Bowie to The Rolling Stones, it’s idiophone made of resonant gourd or wood, is held through holes making a rhythmic, ratchet sound by scraping a stick across specially created ridges
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Two for one: the jazzophone
Word of the week: It is quite rare, has possibly the cheesiest name of any instrument, and is an unholy hybrid of trumpet and alto saxophone, but can produce a remarkably vibrant and unusual sound
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Plenty of puff: Monsieur le Curé and his Ophicleide
Word of the week: It's an obscure hybrid of tuba and saxophone and evolved from the serpent, this rich-toned keyed brass instrument has a mouthpiece that makes it part of the bugle family
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Miles Davis regularly used a Harmon mute, or sourdine, since the late 1950s
Word of the week: It’s the name for defunct reed instrument, but primarily from the French meaning to mute, pertaining to devices that not only reduce volume, but also create new tones, especially for brass instruments
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The xylorimba has a bigger range than either the xylophone or marimba
Word of the week: This week’s strikingly unusual instrument combines the higher range of the four-octave xylophone and lower notes of marimba, using similar wooden bars set out like a piano keyboard that resonate when hit
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A typical zambomba, cuíca or friction drum
Word of the week: The evocative Spanish name for a friction drum, similar to Brazilian samba’s cuíca, it is used around the world in ceremonious or celebratory music, working as a sound box via rubbing with stick, hand or wet cloth
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