[John Whitworth]

I said - didn't I say - that any attempt to mock Bill and Bazza should be resisted. This week the Gog and Magog of Speccie Competitions resume their twin march to immortailty i.e. they both won with splendid obituaries. Janet Kenny just missed out. But Martin Parker not only won and won with a verse, but he scooped the bonus fiver!!! When are they going to bring back bottles of Scotch. Perfhaps that will mean the REAL end of the recession. You can find the full doings as usual in 'Competition'.

This week's competition should appeal to everybody. When, that is, you have worked out what exactly is meant.

No. 2637: New word order
You are invited to take an existing word and alter it by a) adding a letter; b) changing a letter; and c) deleting a letter; and to supply definitions for all three new words. (150 words maximum.) Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 3 March.

[John Whitworth]

I think this is the sort of thing Lucy has in mind. Please say if you disagree.

TORY

A STORY is the tale a Tory tells
Of vile, unnumbered socialistic hells
That Labour makes for Tory guys and gels.

TOY when allied to boy is something bad,
A vile profession for a Tory lad,
And Labour is to blame; it’s very sad.

GORY is how we best describe that fight
Primeval, twixt the Darkness and the Light,
When Labour Wrong succumbs to Tory Right.

[Jayne Osborn]

John,

Hmm...this one's a bit ambiguous. I'm not 100% certain that your offering is what Lucy means. She says give definitions for the new words, which I interpret as 'invented' ones.
For example, take an existing word like 'curtain' (I just looked at the snow outside and decided to shut the curtains!):
a) add a letter - say, courtain - made-up word...think of a witty definition for it.
b) change a letter - say, curtaid...ditto
c) delete a letter - say, curain...ditto

What do you reckon? That's just off the top of my head... more of a prose comp, I'd say, calling for some clever neologisms.

[John Whitworth]

Jayne, I had an email from the great Chris O'Carroll suggesting just what you suggest. I think you two are right and that IS what she means. However, I shall enter my election rhyme on the twin grounds that she MIGHT have been thought to mean what I say she means, and that the Speccie is a right-thinking publication.

Hail Moscow! as Shelley Berman used to say. I see my team is a shade up in the polls.

[Jayne Osborn]

Here goes - I think/hope this is what Lucy means:

Existing word: Confusion
a) add a letter
b) change a letter
c) delete a letter

a) Conefusion:
This is the term used to describe the consternation of motorists, on having to endure several miles of contra-flow traffic travelling at 40mph on a motorway because of re-surfacing, when the alleged ‘Men At Work’ are nowhere in sight and it is obvious that absolutely nothing whatsoever is being done.

b) Sonfusion:
The practice, adopted by many families, of disrupting the usual arrangements so that two (or more) boys, however uncooperative they may be, have to share a bedroom, when their mother comes home from hospital with a longed-for baby girl.

c) Confuion: (pronounced con-fwee-on)
From the French confire- to preserve, and fuir – to shun:
a corruption that recently entered the language, and which means –
‘the avoidance of or the refusal to eat any foodstuff that has been pickled ie. onions, eggs, gherkins etc.'

(139 words)

[John Whitworth]

Yes, Jayne, that's it exactly and it's hard to do. Bloody good. However, I shall have a go myself And try to keep it cean, which you have managed with a fine insouciance. Watch this space. The verb 'to loave' springs to mind.

[FOsen]

Twitter
Twittern: A person whose use of real-time social networking media is marked by extreme slovenliness or profligacy.
Twatter: A foolish or inane post sent via Twitter, pointless babble.
Twitte: One whose texts routinely exceed the 140-character limit on message length by virtue of their redundancy, wordiness, loquaciousness, prolixity, verbosity, and/or redundancy.
F.Osen: That twitte's tweeted nothing but twitternly twatter since Tuesday, the twelfth.

[John Whitworth]

Looks a winner to me, Frank. Topical, funny and the quotation is genius. How DO you twitter and should I start? Does it restrict your growth or make you blind?

Right! Schoolboy smut, I am afraid.

Wankings:

Two distant towns in China

When traveller seeks
The Wankings of old China
He hikes many weeks.

Basho: trans. Arthur Waley

Wonking:

Telling you far more than you could ever want to know about something totally pointless and boring.

Great Bladderwrack! That we should tarry here
While you go tediously wonking on.

Shakespeare: Henry the Third part 4

Wankin:

1). On her second visit to the South seas, the anthropologist Margaret Mead discovered, on a hitherto overlooked island, a tribe which prized blackness of skin above all things. The Wankin were those unfortunates who were paler than was proper. They were universally shunned and indeed occasionally rounded up and despatched through ritual sacrifice with stone knives.

2). (colloq.) Relatives who are too poor to go on holiday.

[Jerome Betts]

Zapper

Zappery: Politicians' state of pre-election nerves when new policies are rapidly floated and then as rapidly tweaked, deleted or zapped.

Lapper: Short for 'wapper-lapper', a person addicted to use of wi-fi laptops in crowded places.

Apper: Someone obsessed with the applications on the latest iphone.

[Aaron Asbury]

Insanity

a) ginsanity - a derangement of the mind felt when excessively imbibing Gin.

b) invanity - an acute psychosis brought about by obsessing over name-brand fashions.

c) isanity - the mental delusion experienced when over-analyzing one's state of "being."


--Aaron Asbury.