Neologisms 12

Cheffy tricks

I like a vivid turn of phrase from the likes of - Nick Clegg and David Cameron?

cheffy tricks (James Martin)
chisel-faced securocrat (Nick Clegg)
cupcake tat (@roxieroulette doesn’t want any at her Ipswich vintage fair)

edu-change industry
ludic workplaces (Alex Paknadel)

mud hut anthropology (Nigel Barley)
nutgraf (US press speak for nutshelling a phenomenon – like why Ed’s 2 kitchens matter so much to the Brits)

selfservative (Tony Turtle ‏‪@ATurtle05‬)
Sonnenfinsternis (German for eclipse)
sunset gig

trilliant (triangular diamond)
‏trolley dash

white-glove sale (at Sotheby’s – means “all the lots were sold”. White-glove service is ultra-posh, fawning service. And a White Goat is... a dingus that turns your waste paper into loo paper.)


Shouty pointless sponsored marquees. (Euan Ferguson on political cabaret)

A shoot-me-now moment at Gardening Club last night bonkers woman talking about allotments got group to stand up, pretend to plant potatoes. (Caroline M ‏@LadyofMisrule)

They were not unnice people. (Trevor Macdonald on the Mafia)

If, as Goethe posited, architecture is frozen music, then these buildings are vertical money. (nybooks.com)

One of those buses where the seats are a duster glued to some moulded fibreglass. Comfy. (John Grindrod ‏@Grindrod)

Getting the right conditions for life to form is like “shooting through the holes in the Swiss cheese”. (Eden)

Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP for the 18th century... (@JamesMelville)

At the risk of sounding like a promotion for a new dog food, I favour what I would call a “scientifically balanced” approach to teaching reading. (Kevin Wheldall)

Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shovelling smoke. (O.W. Holmes)

You may as well ask a man to eat molecules with a pair of chopsticks. (Bram Stoker, Dracula)

Oh, time for that programme where people bimble around buying woodworm-riddled farm implements. (@revpamsmith)

The screaming meemies in three octaves! (Murder She Wrote)

Worryingly desperate LALALALANOTLISTENING quality to kippers faced with actual facts. (Alex Andreou ‏@sturdyAlex on UKIP supporters)

Women’s lives aren’t an endless Clyde of damnation! (@Chrîss_m)

Burning Man; a long open-air grit-filled rave. (Diminuto Lacerta ‏@Jugbo See the Edinburgh fringe "a rave for middle-class kids”.)

It’s painfully obvious that she’s had several jobs done, leaving her nose barely there and her forehead frozen in time. (celebrityhiccup.com on LaToya Jackson)

The Legacy is not all døm and gløm. (theartsdesk.com)

Why did the authorities allow the situation to lurch along, disregarding modern accounting standards, for so many decades? (Catholic Herald on the Vatican’s finances)

It was in rag order, but it was very grand. (Bob Geldof on a mansion the band used to live in)

There are three layers to this flat – it’s like a little sponge sandwich, isn’t it? (Lucy Alexander of Homes under the Hammer)

Oh no it’s John Rutter-mas. (LD)

That train sailed before it even arrived. (@AmyDentata)

The LibDems have fallen off the edge of the planet. (UKIP spokesperson Nov 2014)

Red lights are flashing on the dashboard of the global economy. (BBC News, quoting David Cameron)

I could build a castle out of all the bricks they threw at me. (@How_Upsettting)

That will peg back the temperatures. (Carol Kirkwood)

Pork pies – the pastry and meat “seemed to lead entirely separate lives”. (RI)

What the Scandinavians were churning out by the bucketload. (Tim Wonnacott on some 60s glass)

This "feminist T-shirt" business is really low-wattage stuff on all sides. Depressing wristband pseudo-activism vs confected outrage. (@WillWiles) 

More here, and links to the rest.