Canoodling

Canoodling may be just another word, but it ranks alongside even shenanigans for sheer trip-off-your-tongue pleasure. Unlike syzygy or tmesis, which merely make one look pretentious, canoodling is a word for everyone, however common. Even René Artois took the time to muse on why his best waitress would spend such an amount of time canning noodles in the cellar of his café, which goes to show two things: firstly the word canoodling is perfect for inclusion in British sit-coms, and secondly that its meaning occasionally needs to be explained. Even to those who indulge in a lot of it.

For who amongst us has not canoodled, at one point or another? That moment of frisky pleasure, that late-night tryst in the corner of the pub, sliding your hand slowly up someone-else's body, whispering utter nonsense into their ear in the hope that the fasteners on their clothing are somehow linked to their belief that you fancy them.

Canoodling is making out. It's approaching heavy petting. It's anything above first base. Hell, it might as well even be first base - it's just getting it on with someone. But it's not serious, not right at the moment you begin to canoodle. It may become serious later on - you may consider a proper relationship, involving sex, arguments and buying soft furnishings together. But canoodling's a bit of fun to begin with - a bit of slap and tickle.

And so I ask again... who amongst us can honestly say that at one point or another they're never, ever canoodled? Say it with me - let it roll off your tongue. Canoodle, ladies and gentlemen; one of our language's finest words, not to mention a great way to spend a Friday night.

Draconite

Draconite is a mythical stone, a gem of some kind, found buried deep within the still-living brain of a dragon. To obtain draconite, the brave hero must cut the gem free whilst the dragon is still alive, or the draconite will be useless, all traces of hardness having ebbed away with the dragon's strength. The time-honoured method of acquiring draconite, therefore, is to render the dragon somehow unconscious. Many stories feature herbs, either magical or otherwise, scattered about close to the beast and ensuring the deepest of slumbers, so deep that even having your skull cracked open and a gem dug out from the centre of your still-pulsing brain does nothing to disturb you. Of course, you could put the dragon to sleep and simply hack off its whole head; probably a more prudent course of action if you want to keep yours.

Draconite is hard; harder than diamond, even. Nothing can ever be carved or engraved into the surface of draconite, we're told, although it appears to be brittle enough to be chipped to form spears and arrows. Of course, in mythologies, such a gemstone was precious beyond words, and described as having magical and beneficial properties.

Pliny describes it as a white gem which drives away all poisonous animals and cures envenomed bites. It crops up in alchemical texts, and in English and Irish writings from the middle ages. There is a slight difference; these stories describe draconite as a mystical black gem, and there's little doubt that the gem being described is actually obsidian - among a range of Irish terms for draconite is the word obsianus, and it features strongly in the story of Mongan's death. Mongan, deserving of it or not, is struck by Arthur with draconite, an act which quickly results in Mongan's demise.

The idea of draconite is not merely part of Western myths, though; Chinese stories are big on dragons and precious stones, be it a pearl beneath the chin or the blue, lined object found in front of the dragon's horns in the Sun Kwang-hien. Finally, current usage of the word draconite, often as part of RPGs, extends to describing creatures which are half-dragon, an unknown metal of extreme hardness, and a stone formed from dragon's blood. It's easy to see how these have their origins in the draconite myth.

Why Did We Call Them Sperm Whales?

You probably know that spermaceti is a waxy substance which is contained within the skull of the sperm whale, and sadly often obtained from the same. It's white, and a large whale contains up to three tons of the stuff. If you can make it through to chapter seventy-eight of Moby Dick you'll become an expert in how it was extracted, and probably won't envy Tashtego falling into the depths of a whale's head whilst using a bucket to get out all the good stuff.

So, here we have a thick white, gloopy substance. And what might that remind you of, particularly if you're a sailor who's been at sea for a month and you've just thrown one over your thumb earlier that morning? And it all becomes clear: one sperm whale, containing up to three tons of spunk.

And so, we must ask - is there not a better name for the poor thing than Sperm Whale? Well, how about cachalot, the original Spanish and Portugese name for this poor, mis-titled creature. Mind you, cachalot still means 'big head', so it's not that much of an improvement... particularly when you consider the Dutch potvis, or the German pottwal, both of which reference the large head, sticking out like a pan or pot. At least they're descriptive, I suppose.

"Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber and sanctum sanctorum of the whale."

Furtling

Ah, the Victorians. Frantically covering nicely-turned table legs one minute, then indulging in suggestive hand manipulation the next. Furtling, a fantastic word which rolls off the tongue with just the slightest allusion to furtiveness and fondling, is classic Victorian entertainment, and it works like this:

Take one image - possibly a woodcut of a young lady, sitting at her dressing table, or a gentleman on a beach, drying himself with a towel. Note that the image has cut-out regions: the young lady's legs appear to be missing, and the gentlemen's buttocks have been replaced with a suspiciously-shaped hole.

Having read the instructions, place one's hands appropriately behind the image, filling the gaps, as directed, with skin. Mmm... sensuous, realistic, strokable skin! Well, actually we all know it's just fingertips, but to the repressed and easily-amused Victorian masses a gentleman on the beach sans knitted swimsuit was akin to hardcore porn. As for the lady, her legs nicely filled in with a pair of fingers, the knuckles cunningly forming her knees... well, it certainly brought a giggle to after-dinner proceedings, and led quite nicely to the suggestive songs about coconuts.

The practice, unsurprisingly, was a subject of much controversy. The Reverend F.B. Cummings got into quite a stew over the practice, declaring forcefully 'The hand was not meant for this, Sir'. Others disagreed and a range of high society members proclaimed its virtues, even as the practice dwindled.

Strangely, furtling lives on. A good source of history is The Naughty Victorian Handbook: Furtling: The Rediscovered Art Of Erotic Hand Manipulation by Burton Silver and Jeremy Bennet. Alternately, the internet can be relied on, as usual, to produce a range of people who think furtling is more fun than a barrelful of monkeys.

A gallery at www.xenophilia.com features such diverse individuals as Sarah, 23, who runs an ostrich farm, and Bill, 30, an Egyptologist, who are all keen to show you their 'finger buttocks'.

Also, there are exciting things afoot at Fentiman's, with only the slightest ulterior motive. I tried the ginger beer once, and I must say I wasn't entirely impressed.

Bollocks

Bollocks, at its plainest, means testicles, and thus makes a perfect expletive. That said, on a more complex level it can also refer to utter destruction. Utter destruction, yes: the kind of utter destruction you only get when you've left your nan alone with the DVD player and she's pressed all the buttons on the remote trying to get the tape to rewind. It's a simple yet pleasing word, favourable to the tongue with a pleasant aftertaste, and one which is well known to anyone of British origin, though recently it's made a pleasing bid for world domination. Online dictionaries, however, will politely refer you to the word bollix, for which www.thesaurus.com provides alternatives such as blunder, botch, flounder, mistake or the more appropriate muff up. In Britain, you see, bollocks fits perfectly alongside every other sexual swear word ever invented, solely because it refers to balls but also because it can be used in a whole range of situations. This is the acid test of swear-words, and bollocks passes with flying colours.

How? Well, despite this simple definition, bollocks (like any other swear word) has a whole plethora of obscure meanings. Just like shit, in fact: everyone's favourite brown word. Shit can mean the worst of the worst ("These cornflakes are shit!") or the best thing ever ("This oregano, Brian, is the good shit"). Fuck works in just the same way, maybe to an even greater degree.

It comes as little surprise to find, then, that bollocks is also possessed of this marvellous ability, though with one proviso. For bollocks to mean good it is usually, though not always, accompanied by the word dog's. The dog's bollocks apparently arrived on the scene in 1989, though where and how remains entirely unclear. Viz magazine, in particular, had a penchant for the phrase, but then anything even vaguely smutty was a magnet for the Viz crowd. Incidentally, apostrophe freaks will note that it is a particular canine's testicles which are undergoing scrotal scrutiny, and not the general testicular region of all dog-kind, though nobody stops for an instant to imagine why the balls of a dog would be quite so exciting. (Perhaps it's those afternoons of fun round at Auntie Maud's, flicking the prominent testicles of her jack russell just to hear it yelp. I know it is in my case...)

Things probably came to a head with Sex Pistols' 1977 release of Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols, which sparked various courtroom-related shenanigans concerning the use of the word bollocks. Legal action took place under the Indecent Advertisements Act of 1889 after the manager of a Virgin Record Shop in Nottingham was forced to dismantle his display of Sex Pistols' posters and subsequently arrested. Arriving in court, the whole case revolved around the use of the word bollocks, an alleged obscenity. The issue was eventually sorted out by Richard Branson, who called upon James Kingsley, a professor of linguistics and a former priest, to testify that the word bollocks was eighteenth century slang and entirely acceptable. He explained the bollock was an Anglo-Saxon word meaning 'small ball'. Additionally, bollock was used as a slang term for clergymen, indicating their reputation for talking nonsense, or a load of old balls. Some things never change.

Since that time the use of the word bollocks has become as much part of British life as fish and chips, roast beef and mushy peas. Anyone now, at approximately quarter to eleven in the Dog And Duck on a Friday night, espousing their theory of world domination with gay abandon, can expect several shouts of Bollocks! and, in fact, will appreciate it. Such is British culture.

Memorably, Jasper Carrott recalls in one of his books, how there was a time where the whole of North America were blissfully unaware of the word bollocks. A friend, moving to the United States, took the opportunity to have a licence plate which displayed the word 'bollocks' in a slightly bastardised form. Upon, one day, being asked its meaning he collapsed into laughter and informed the enquiree that it meant 'spots'. Apparently, Jasper was with the unfortunate lady when she marched into Boots, pointed to a large zit on her chin and asked for some cream to rub into her bollocks. With regard to the veracity of this story, curiously enough the word 'bollocks' springs to mind...

Spiv

Spiv is a British term for a petty criminal, particularly popular during wartime and seeing a gentle decline in popularity since. The general image of a spiv is a flashy, well-dressed but somehow oily gentleman. Russell Brand has managed to turn Flash Harry into more of a Cockney dandy than a spiv, but if you go back to the original The Belles Of St Trinian's you'll see a perfect example of a spiv - a little pencil moustache, well-cut suit and a brightly-patterned tie, all set off with a rather dodgy hat.
Classic spiv activities include black marketeering, confidence trickery, illegal street trading; it's easy to see how these activities could have thrived in a post-war Britain, particularly as rationing came to an end and imported items became increasingly available.

Badelynge

Badelynge (pronounced 'bad-ling') is a little-known and obsolete collective noun for a group of ducks. Notable for its inclusion in the Dictionary Of Obsolete And Provincial English, Thomas Wright's 1869 guide to English phrases that had fallen by the wayside, it is easy to see why the term 'a badelynge of ducks' is no longer in common use. Most of the words in Wright's tome have been out of use for at least a hundred years.

Alternate spellings include badelyng, omitting the final 'e', or even badling, which retains the same pronunciation but features an updated, more modern spelling.

Modern alternatives to badelynge include a paddling, raft, team, flock or gang of ducks. Other outdated and obsolete alternatives include a smeath, plump or the slightly suggestive (and thus fantastic) 'little knob of ducks'.