HADZOR (n.)
A sharp instrument placed
in the washing-up bowl which makes it easier to cut yourself.
HAGNABY (n.)
Someone who looked a lot
more attractive in the disco than they do in your bed the next morning.
HALCRO (n.)
An adhesive fibrous cloth
used to hold babies' clothes together. Thousands of tiny pieces of jam 'hook' on
to thousands of tinypieces of dribble, enabling the cloth to become 'sticky'.
HALIFAX (n.)
The green synthetic
astroturf on which greengrocers display their vegetables.
HAMBLEDON (n.)
The sound of a
single-engined aircraft flying by, heard whilst lying in a summer field in
England, which somehow concentrates the silence and sense of space and
timelessness and leaves one with a profound feeling of something or other.
HAPPLE (vb.)
To annoy people by
finishing their sentences for them and then telling them what they really meant
to say.
HARBLEDOWN (vb.)
To manoeuvre a
double mattress down a winding staircase.
HARBOTTLE (n.)
A particular kind of
fly which lives inside double glazing.
HARPENDEN (n.)
The coda to a phone
conversation, consisting of about eight exchanges, by which people try
gracefully to get off the line.
HASELBURY PLUCKNETT
(n.)
A mechanical device for cleaning combs invented during the industrial
revolution at the same time as Arkwright's Spinning Jenny, but which didn't
catch on in the same way.
HASSOP (n.)
The pocket down the back
of an armchair used for storing two-shilling bits and pieces of Lego.
HASTINGS (pl. n.)
Things said on the
spur of the moment to explain to someone who comes into a room unexpectedly
precisely what it is you are doing.
HATHERSAGE (n.)
The tiny snippets
of beard which coat the inside of a washbasin after shaving in it.
HAUGHAM (n.)
One who loudly informs
other diners in a restaurant what kind of man he is by calling for the chef by
his christian name from the lobby.
HAXBY (n.)
Any garden implement found
in a potting shed whose exact purpose is unclear.
HEANTON PUNCHARDON
(n.)
A violent argument which breaks out in the car on the way home from a
party between a couple who have had to be polite to each other in company all
evening.
HENSTRIDGE (n.)
The dried yellow
substance found between the prongs of forks in restaurants.
HERSTMONCEUX (n.)
The correct
name for the gold medallion worn by someone who is in the habit of wearing their
shirt open to the waist.
HEVER (n.)
The panic caused by
half-hearing a Tannoy in an airport.
HIBBING (n.)
The marks left on the
outside breast pocket of a storekeeper's overall where he has put away his pen
and missed.
HICKLING (participial vb.)
The
practice of infuriating theatre-goers by not only arriving late to a centre-row
seat, but also loudly apologising to and patting each member of the audience in
turn.
HIDCOTE BARTRAM (n.)
To be
caught in a hidcote bartram is to say a series of protracted and final goodbyes
to a group of people, leave the house and then realise you've left your hat
behind.
HIGH LIMERIGG (n.)
The
topmost tread of a staircase which disappears when you're climbing the stairs in
the darkness.
HIGH OFFLEY (n.)
Goosnargh
(q.v.) three weeks later.
HOBBS CROSS (n.)
The awkward
leaping manoeuvre a girl has to go through in bed in order to make him sleep on
the wet patch.
HODDLESDEN (n.)
An 'injured'
footballer's limp back into the game which draws applause but doesn't fool
anybody.
HODNET (n.)
The wooden safety platform
supported by scaffolding round a building under construction from which the
builders (at almost no personal risk) can drop pieces of cement on passersby.
HOFF (vb.)
To deny indignantly something
which is palpably true.
HOGGESTON (n.)
The action of
overshaking a pair of dice in a cup in the mistaken belief that this will affect
the eventual outcome in your favour and not irritate everyone else.
HORTON-CUM-STUDLEY
(n.)
The combination of little helpful grunts, nodding movements of the head,
considerate smiles, upward frowns and serious pauses that a group of people join
in making in trying to elicit the next pronouncement of somebody with a dreadful
stutter.
HOVE (adj.)
Descriptive of the
expression seen on the face of one person in the presence of another who clearly
isn't going to stop talking for a very long time.
HOYLAKE (n.)
The pool of edible gravy
which surrounds an inedible and disgusting lump of meat - eaten to give the
impression that the person is 'just not very hungry, but mmm this is
delicious'.
Cf. PEASLAKE - a similar experience had by vegetarians.
HUBY (n.)
A half-erection large enough
to be a publicly embarrassing bulge in the trousers, not large enough to be of
any use to anybody.
HUCKNALL (vb.)
To crouch upwards: as
in the movement of a seated person's feet and legs made in order to allow a
cleaner's hoover to pass beneath them.
HULL (adj.)
Descriptive of the smell of
a weekend cottage.
HUMBER (vb.)
To move like the cheeks
of a very fat person as their car goes over a cattle grid.
HUMBY (n.)
An erection which won't go
down when a gentleman has to go for a pee in the middle of making love to
someone.
HUNA (n.)
The result of coming to the
wrong decision.
HUNSINGORE (n.)
Medieval
ceremonial brass horn with which the successful execution of an araglin
(q.v.) is trumpeted from the castle battlements.
HUTLERBURN (n. archaic)
A burn
sustained as a result of the behaviour of a clumsy hutler. (The precise duties
of hutlers are now lost in the mists of history.)
HUTTOFT (n.)
The fibrous algae which
grows in the dark, moist environment of trouser turn-ups.