word submissions

What’s all the snoise about? Lucy Mangan looks at some of your recent word submissions

Forgive me if I am not quite myself at the moment. I am heavily involved in a friend’s ‘wedmin’. She introduced me to the word and consequently the plethora of miseries it covers. It’s short for ‘wedding administration’, regarding which there are no other abbreviations, short cuts, abridgement, truncations, condensations,… Read More

Are you ‘mabobing’? Read Lucy Mangan’s new article to find out.

I am mabobing as I type this, according to CorrinFoley – making random, fidgety movements (banging my foot against the chair, rapping my fingers on the keys between sentences). It’s because I have so many decisions to make in this column, the first of course being whether to… Read More

Are you ‘kwl’ or ‘cool’? Lucy Mangan looks at your word submissions from the last fortnight

News reaches me – via contributor kaiwaiipanda – that if you are under a certain age, you do not write “cool” in your texts. It is apparently only cool to write “kwl”. I m old, fthr tm. It is possible that they have sound reasons for this otherwise inexcusable… Read More

‘Drynuary’ is nearly over, so what’s next on the word list? Here’s Lucy Mangan with your update…

How are you? Have you survived Dry January? Or ‘Drynuary’, as submitted by Tommy, which if we’d thought of it earlier could have saved us all vital nanoseconds over the last four weeks. When you consider how boring all conversations about dry January are, a nanosecond saved on such discussion… Read More

Lucy Mangan looks at your first word submissions of 2016

Happy New Year to you all! I trust you all had a lovely break and are now enjoying unparalleled success with your chosen resolutions. I am not. But in a crazy twist no one saw coming, I have conceived another one which renders any guilt or fretting about this impossible. Read More

Lucy Mangan’s ‘awesomesauce’ take on your new word submissions

A bumper crop of delights this week, thank you, and from a wealth of new contributors as well as doughty old timers! Thank you, everyone – it feels like Christmas has come early. Welcome to Willow, first of all, a newcomer who gives us “awesomesauce”, which I love almost as… Read More

‘Manbun’, ‘hun’, ‘garroom’ and ‘thinkings’ – Lucy Mangan’s back with your new word submissions

I had a little operation last week, and as a result my ‘sedentarity’ has reached new heights. Or lows, depending on your view of the state of being sedentary, which is of course what AustinAllegro’s submission means. But between the stitches and the interesting new awareness-through-bruising of unknown internal organs,… Read More

‘Bigorexia’, ‘athleisure’ and ‘gudge’ – Lucy Mangan reveals the true nature of your new word submissions

Another week, another defiantly disheartening glimpse into the corporate mindset. This one is brought to you courtesy of the phrase “defeat device” (submitted by AustinAllegro), which is the name given to anything designed to affect emissions control systems. Like, it turns out, the software used in millions of Volkswagen diesel… Read More

‘Farquhar’, ‘Sangry’ and ‘Thighbrows’: Lucy Mangan avoids the pig-shaped elephant in the room with your new word submissions

I am resisting the temptation to fill this blog with the pig puns and other pieces of porcine wordplay that have been filling the internet since #piggate occurred. Or #Hameron happened. I shall not ask whether any PM has ever been rasher, or if he should get the chop and… Read More