New coinage

In Competition No. 2420 you were invited to invent words describing something familiar which fill a need in the English language.

The germ of this competition was a book called The Meaning of Tingo which assembles ‘extraordinary words from around the world’, from which I learnt that the Japanese have a single word to describe ‘a woman who appears pretty when seen from behind but not from the front’ and another very useful one which means ‘to try out a new sword on a passer-by’. I make way now for your own glorious neologisms. Each item wins its inventor £4, and Nicholas Hodgson gets the bonus fiver.

Nompathy: concern felt by public for victim of crime whom they don’t know but who is referred to by his or her first name by the media

Backdraper: person who seeks to give the impression that he is at work by putting his jacket on the back of his chair

Blunk: person one wishes to ridicule but is reluctant to do so because of a disability

Meteritis: belief that value can always be quantified, exemplified by unhealthy obsession with targets, league tables etc

Regrats: repeated expressions of thanks, e.g., ‘thank you for your thank you letter’
Nicholas Hodgson

Wassony: inability to recall accurately the previous performance by an actor (as in: ‘Wasn’t ’e the bloke in …?’)
Viddunce: sense of personal failure when unable to grasp basic principles of programming the video
Umblings: inadequate conversational responses (e.g., to dentist during oral examination)
Dejavitude: the sense of having seen a film before, possibly in French with different actors, plot and ending
Sofage: the amount retrieved per annum from under sofa cushions
D.A. Prince

Astropub: ‘rebranded’ or ‘themed’ public house with as much atmosphere as a remote star
Accelebration: the rapid rise to fame and fortune of a talentless nonentity
Neurostalgia: reflecting painfully on past pleasures now abolished by age
Xenotopia: retirement abroad (or the dream of)
Virginferno: traumatising experience of rail travel
Basil Ransome-Davies

Decap: to print names without capital letters —the dream of graphic designers everywhere
Sminkle: to smile with an all-too conscious, eye-wrinkling twinkle
Opinion-cobblers: slot-filling journalists who pass comment on the news much as they might pass wind or water
Danglion: the recorded telephone message that encouragingly says your call is in a queue
Effumate: to deliver a coarse, abusive response to a request
W.J.