My Old Liffs

I was trawling through some of my writing and I came upon my submissions for the 'Afterliff' book which was published a while back.

I managed to get 'Aismunderby' into the book which I was delighted about. Here is my full list of submissions:

Killoscully: The realisation that you have just saluted someone who waved in your direction but was in fact saluting somebody else.

Annameadle: A specific type of song used to send jockeys to sleep in Victorian times.

Ballygibbon: To purposefully kick somebody in the testicles.

Lurgan: The sickly and slightly embarrassed feeling you get after eating too much cake at a child's birthday party.

Ardee: A very small person on a very tall hill.

Aismunderby: The skin indentations seen on either side of a person's nose after they remove their glasses.

Ibricken: The theory of suicide in the animal kingdom such as birds flying into windows, dogs jumping off balconies etc.

Abergwilly: The shrinking of the male genitalia which occurs when immersed in very cold water.

Burstow: Shirt worn by dart players.

Clayton: Pretending to laugh at a joke that everyone gets but you.

Gwehellog: To instigate a fight with a hen.

Haverbrack: Dour, angry, unmarried middle-aged woman; usually a matron; Became extinct around 1988.

Hodnell: A hat primarily worn by balding people in the hope that from a great distance it will appear as though they have hair.

Tandridge: To trace cat's footprints into a forest.

Liscannor: The incoherent sound made by a person manning the loud speaker system at a country fair.

I think you missed the point a bit or just went off brief or you could have been more successful.

Liffs are recognisable things that don't have names, or we don't know them commonly. You have to have the weird sign name and an actual thing for the joke to work.

A weird sign name and then a weird thing like putting jockeys to sleep in Victorian times or a small person on a small hill are more like Mad Libs and I think Mad Libs only work as a performance because then it's the performer that's real or recognisable and the absurdity is leveraged off them.

With this in mind I thought both these were good but the rest didn't work:

Aismunderby: The skin indentations seen on either side of a person's nose after they remove their glasses.

Burstow: Shirt worn by dart players.

I'd say about half of them work, and half are just surreal, and so missing the point a smidgen.

I'd say they probnably chose the right one, so well done to you and to them.

I had a couple of liffs published in Afterliff.

They were:

Clavering (vb.) Pretending to text when alone and feeling vulnerable in public.

Frinkle Green (n.) The green garnish on a meal that you leave at the side of a plate as you don't know if you are supposed to eat it.

I submitted five, but I can't remember what the other three were. I do believe one of them described the wake-up head-jolt when you start to fall asleep on public transport.

I liked 'lurgan' - that really works. Suggests 'regurgitate'...