Some Meanings of Liff

I'm a huge, huge fan of Douglas Noel Adams. I think he's the cleverest person to have walked the Earth in the last century.

So anyway, I was going through 'The Meaning of Liff'' again. For the uninitiated, its his made up dictionary on facts we all recognise but never bothered to put names to them. This gives an odd sense of familiarity to the reading and a strange realisation of those facts which we never thought about before. And then there are those which are simply outrageous and which only DNA can pull off. They're all brilliant. Here are some, picked completely at random.

HATHERSAGE (n.)

The tiny snippets of beard which coat the inside of a washbasin after
shaving in it.

BANFF

Pertaining to, or descriptive of, that kind of facial expression which
is impossible to achieve except when having a passport photograph taken.

DULEEK (n.)

Sudden realisation, as you lie in bed waiting for the alarm to go off,
that it should have gone off an hour ago.
(This one's painfully true for me. Lawschoolites will know what I'm talking about)

GILDERSOME (adj.)

Descriptive of a joke someone tells you which starts well, but which
becomes so embellished in the telling that you start to weary of it after
scarely half an hour.


GREAT WAKERING (participal vb.)

Panic which sets in when you badly need to go to the lavatory and
cannot make up your mind about what book or magazine to take with you.


MALIBU (n.)

The height by which the top of a wave exceeds the height to which you
have rolled up your trousers.


MOTSPUR (n.)

The fourth wheel of a supermarket trolley which looks identical to the
other tree but renders the trolley completely uncontrollable.


PELUTHO (n.)

A South American ball game. The balls are whacked against a brick wall
with a stout wooden bat until the prisoner confesses.


PLEELEY (adj.)

Descriptive of a drunk person's attempt to be endearing.


RAMSGATE (n.)

All institutional buildings must, by law, contain at least twenty
remsgates. These are doors which open the opposite way to the one you
expect.


SOTTERLEY (n,)

Uncovered bit between two shops with awnings, which you have to cross
when it's raining.


THRUPP (vb.)

To hold a ruler on one end on a desk and make the other end go
bbddbbddbbrrbrrrrddrr.
(so many memories come back with this one)