Your Custom Text Here
Prince’s nimble fingers would certainly have been skilled in diffibulation
Word of the week: It’s a mid-17th century verb that has sexy, or maybe sensible overtones, meaning to unbutton or undo, and as barely as it is in used in the language, so also is also pretty much naked in song lyrics. Or is it?
Read more
David Bowie could certainly be described as epalpebrate in this still from The Man Who Fell To Earth
Word of the Week: It's an obscure adjective from the late 19th century to describe a person lacking something we all take for granted, but definitely notice when they are missing – eyebrows
Read more
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?
Read more
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
Read more
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
Read more
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
Read more
Masterpiece of building by the Baya weaver bird
Word of the week: A delightfully evocative noun that suggests neatness and cosiness, this obscure 17th century word from the Latin means nest and the building of, which can be connected not just to birds, but animals and even humans
Read more
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 …
Read more
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
Read more
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
Read more
A sweeping visual statement about this week’s word …
Word of the week: Some kind of norse telescope? An instrument to detect scandal? Neither. This week's archaic word originated in 1802 with an invention to automate chimney sweeping and to put dusty child labourers out of danger
Read more
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?
Read more
Oh what a carillon … in Bruges, Belgium
Word of the week: The bells! The bells! Struck by metal clappers connected to baton keys, this beautiful sounding word – and a-peeling historic instrument – comprises, by definition, a minimum of 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells played melodically or in chords
Read more
The true sound of Australia …
Word of the week: It's that unmistakable indigenous Australian hardwood trumpet "drone pipe" classified as a brass aerophone and among its extraordinary qualities, playing helps reduce snoring and obstructive sleep apne by strengthening the muscles of the upper airways
Read more
The esraj is a four-string version of the older dilruba
Word of the Week: It has a beautifully eerily, emotional sound that echoes the human voice, that comes not from vocal chords, but from bowed strings in this instrument from southern Asia – mainly music in Sikh, Punjab and eastern Bengal culture
Read more
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
Read more
Hurdy-gurdy
Word of the week: It sounds like a medieval insult, disease or even sexual position, but it's a basic form of the stringed instrument played with keys and by turning a hand-crank wheel that rubs against the strings like a mechanised violin
Read more
Tuvan musician Evgeny Saryglar on the igil
Word of the week: It's an elegant, bowed, two-stringed Tuvan musical instrument, central to the music of that southern Siberian region, emitting a haunting sound that often accompanies and is played by throat singers
Read more
Sticking the boot in …
Word of the week: The Australian name for the Mendoza, Mendozer, Monkey Stick, Murrumbidgee River Rattler, or Zob Stick, this ultimate pub instrument is a shake-and-bang percussion stick or pole is mostly made from nailed-on beer bottle tops
Read more
Mbuti pygmies listening back to their own music in 1952
Word of the week: It is a horn-like trumpet used by the Mbuti pygmy tribes of Democratic Republic of the Congo, but also the name of a ritual to celebrate the precious life of the forest to these hunter-gatherers
Read more