lucy mangan

‘Brexit’, ‘Hygge’ and ‘mic drop’ – Lucy Mangan’s take on Collins Word of the Year 2016

My goodness – is it that time of year already? It is! It is indeed already time to unveil the 2016 shortlist and winner of the coveted title Collins Word of the Year. First on the list of contenders is hygge (pronounced a bit like hoo-gah, a… Read More

‘Womance’, ‘fridgesurfing’, and ‘hamdog’ – Lucy Mangan’s back with your new word submissions

What is a womance, d’you think? A relationship between two Jonathan Ross impersonators? Between two fans of Womad? Two wombats? Alas, it is, according to its contributor Animan12 the most prosaic of portmanteaus and refers to a close but non-sexual relationship between two women. Modelled – presumably – on… Read More

A new month equals a new bunch of words. Lucy Mangan takes a look at your recent word submissions

Many of our contributors have written in to make sure that we have added traingate and ram-packed to our word warehouse, and we have – they’re in the sections marked by rolling-eye and tearstained emojis. We enjoy the irony of a pictogram-led categorisation system for our stores at… Read More

From ‘trickini’ to ‘zoodles’, Lucy Mangan takes a look at your recent word submissions

There is just time, in the dog days of August, for the ‘trickini’ (submitted by tikitaka) to make an appearance. This is underwear that passes muster as a bikini, for those days when – um – I guess you can’t be bothered to put a bikini on instead of underwear… Read More

From ‘pregret’ to ‘verklempt’, Lucy Mangan takes a look at your latest word submissions

Our increasingly turbulent times are again reflected in readers’ latest submissions. Since we last spoke, there have been more terrorist attacks around the world, more police shootings in the US, continuing post-Brexit shenanigans this side of the pond and the nomination of an orange madman as the Republican presidential candidate. Read More

From ‘bregret’ to ‘haven assets’, Lucy Mangan takes a look at your recent word submissions

Brokay. Let’s brget it all brout of the way brnow, yes, and brmove onto other things. There’s Bregret (from contributor MelonyLiar) amongst those who voted to leave the EU but woke up on June 24 to find that what they (Bregrexiteers, from AustinAllegro) intended as a cathartic protest had… Read More

From ‘boggle’ to ‘Michilimackinac’, Lucy Mangan takes a look at your recent word submissions

I am writing this as a flotilla of boats full of men making rude gestures and shouting impenetrable insults at each other (“That dinghy is from Goldman Sachs!” being one we shall have to unpick at leisure once we reach calmer waters) in what they claim is an effort to… Read More

Lucy Mangan takes a look at some of your recent word submissions

I don’t know about you, but with still almost three weeks to go until the referendum I am already beginning to suffer from Brexistentialism. Contributor Beatrix111 defines it as “the belief that the UK would be better off leaving the UK and being a free agent in a deterministic and… Read More

Lucy Mangan checks out our recent word submissions, from ‘maternity moon’ to ‘ackle’.

After last week’s “peternity/pawternity leave” (the time off granted by some super-civilised companies to people who need to settle a recently-acquired pet or care for a sick one) comes “meternity leave” and “maternity moon.” The former was coined by author (of a book entitled – ta-da! – Meternity) Meghann Foye… Read More