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In the Midlands, for example, we find a jaisy, a polite and effeminate man, and in Yorkshire a stridewallops, a tall and awkward woman. If you tuck too much into the clotted cream in Cornwall you might end up ploffy, plump; in Shropshire, hold back on the beer or you might develop joblocks, fleshy, hanging cheeks; and down in Wiltshire hands that have been left too long in the washtub are quobbled. The Geordies have the evocative word dottle for the tobacco left in the pipe after smoking, and in Lincolnshire charmings are paper and rag chewed into small pieces by mice. In Suffolk to nuddle is to walk alone with the head held low; and in Hampshire to vuddle is to spoil a child by injudicious petting. And don’t we all know someone who’s crambazzled (Yorkshire), prematurely aged through drink and a dissolute life?

Like English itself, my research hasn’t stopped at the shores of the Channel. How about a call-dog (Jamaican English), a fish too small for human consumption or a twack (Newfoundland English) a shopper who looks at goods, inquires about prices but buys nothing. Slang from elsewhere offers us everything from a waterboy (US police), a boxer who can be bribed or coerced into losing, to a shubie (Australian), someone who buys surfing gear and clothing but doesn’t actually surf. In Canada, a cougar describes an older woman on the prowl for a younger man, while in the US a quirkyalone is someone who doesn’t fall in love easily, but waits for the right person to come along.

Returning to the mainstream, it’s good to know that there are such sound English words as rumblegumption, meaning common sense, or ugsomeness, loathing. Snirtle is to laugh in a quiet, suppressed or restrained manner, while to snoach is to speak through the nose. If you are clipsome, you are eminently embraceable; when clumpst, your hands are stiff with cold. To boondoggle is to carry out valueless work in order to convey the impression that one is busy, while to limbeck is to rack the brain in an effort to have a new idea.

As for whiffling, well, that turned out to be a word with a host of meanings. In eighteenth-century Oxford and Cambridge, a whiffler was one who examined candidates for degrees, while elsewhere a whiffler was an officer who cleared the way for a procession, as well as being the name for the man with the whip in Morris dancing. The word also means to blow or scatter with gusts of air, to move or think erratically, as well as applying to geese descending rapidly from a height once the decision to land has been made. In the underworld slang of Victorian times, a whiffler was one who cried out in pain, while in the cosier world of P.G. Wodehouse, whiffled was what you were when you’d had one too many of Jeeves’s special cocktails.

As a self-confessed bowerbird (one who collects an astonishing array of sometimes useless objects), I’ve greatly enjoyed putting together all three collections. I sincerely hope that you enjoy reading them, and that they save you both from mulligrubs, depression of spirits, and onomatomania, vexation in having difficulty finding the right word.

In compiling all three books I’ve done my level best to check the accuracy of all the words included, but any comments or even favourite examples of words of your own are welcomed at the book’s two websites: for foreign languages www.themeaningoftingo.com – and for English www.thewonderofwhiffling.com (There were some very helpful responses to my previous books, for which I remain grateful.)

Adam Jacot de Boinod

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to the following people for their advice and help on all three books: Giles Andreae, Martin Bowden, Joss Buckley, Candida Clark, Anna Coverdale, Nick Emley, Natasha Fairweather, William Hartston, Beatrix Jacot de Boinod, Nigel Kempner, Nick and Galia Kullmann, Kate Lawson, Alf Lawrie, John Lloyd, Sarah McDougall, Yaron Meshoulam, Tony Morris, David Prest and David Shariatmadari.

In particular I must thank my agent, Peter Straus, my illustrator Sandra Howgate, my editor at Penguin, Georgina Laycock; and Mark