eConsultant - Meaning of Liff

CAARNDUNCAN (n.) : The high-pitched and insistent cry of the young female human urging one of its peer group to do something dangerous on a cliff-edge or piece of toxic waste ground.
CAIRNPAT (n.) : A large piece of dried dung found in mountainous terrain above the cowline which leads the experienced tracker to believe that hikers have recently passed.
CAMER (n.) : A mis-tossed caber.
CANNOCK CHASE (n.) : In any box of After Eight Mints, there is always a large number of empty envelopes and no more that four or five actual mints. The cannock chase is the process by which, no matter which part of the box you insert your fingers into, or how often, you will always extract most of the empty sachets before pinning down an actual mint, or 'cannock'. The cannock chase also occurs with people who put their dead matches back in the matchbox, and then embarrass themselves at parties trying to light cigarettes with tree quarters of an inch of charcoal. The term is also used to describe futile attempts to pursue unscrupulous advertising agencies who nick your ideas to sell chocolates with.
CHENIES (pl.n.) : The last few sprigs or tassels of last Christmas's decoration you notice on the ceiling while lying on the sofa on an August afternoon.
CHICAGO (n.) : The foul-smelling wind which precedes an underground railway train.
CHIPPING ONGAR (n.) : The disgust and embarrassment (or 'ongar') felt by an observer in the presence of a person festooned with kirbies (q.v.) when they don't know them well enough to tell them to wipe them off, invariably this 'ongar' is accompanied by an involuntary staccato twitching of the leg (or 'chipping').
CLABBY (adj.) : A 'clabby' conversation is one stuck up by a commissionare or cleaning lady in order to avoid any further actual work. The opening gambit is usually designed to provoke the maximum confusion, and therefore the longest possible clabby conversation. It is vitally important to learn the correct, or 'clixby' (q.v.), responses to a clabby gambit, and not to get trapped by a 'ditherington' (q.v.). For instance, if confronted with a clabby gambit such as 'Oh, Mr Smith, I didn't know you'd had your leg off', the ditherington response is 'I haven't....' whereas the clixby is 'good.'
CLACKAVOID (n.) : Technical BBC term for a page of dialogue from Blake's Seven.
CLACKMANNAN (n.) : The sound made by knocking over an elephant's-foot umbrella stand full of walking sticks. Hence name for a particular kind of disco drum riff.
CLATHY (adj.) : Nervously indecisive about how safely to dispose of a dead lightbulb.
CLENCHWARTON (n. archaic) : One who assists an exorcist by squeezing whichever part of the possessed the exorcist deems useful.
CLIXBY (adj.) : Politely rude. Bliskly vague. Firmly uninformative.
CLONMULT (n.) : A yellow ooze usually found near secretions of buldoo (q.v.) and sadberge (q.v.).
CLOVIS (q.v.) : One who actually looks forward to putting up the Christmas decorations in the office.
CLUN (n.) : A leg which has gone to sleep and has to be hauled around after you.
CLUNES (pl.n.) : People who just won't go.
CONDOVER (n.) : One who is employed to stand about all day browsing through the magazine racks in the newsagent.
CONG (n.) : Strange-shaped metal utensil found at the back of the saucepan cupboard. Many authorities believe that congs provide conclusive proof of the existence of a now extinct form of yellow vegetable which the Victorians used to boil mercilessly.
CORFE (n.) : An object which is almost totally indistinguishable from a newspaper, the one crucial difference being tat it belongs to somebody else and is unaccountably much more interesting that your own - which may otherwise appear to be in all respects identical. Though it is a rule of life that a train or other public place may contain any number of corfes but only one newspaper, it is quite possible to transform your own perfectly ordinary newspaper into a corfe by the simple expedient of letting somebody else read it.
CORFU (n.) : The dullest person you met during the course of your holiday. Also the only one who failed to understand that the exchanging of addresses at the end of a holiday is merely a social ritual and is absolutely not an invitation to phone you up and turn up unannounced on your doorstep three months later.
CORRIEARKLET (n.) : The moment at which two people approaching from opposite ends of a long passageway, recognise each other and immediately pretend they haven't. This is to avoid the ghastly embarrassment of having to continue recognising each other the whole length of the corridor.
CORRIECRAVIE (n.) : To avert the horrors of corrievorrie (q.v.) corriecravie is usually employed. This is the cowardly but highly skilled process by which both protagonists continue to approach while keeping up the pretence that they haven't noticed each other - by staring furiously at their feet, grimacing into a notebook, or studying the walls closely as if in a mood of deep irritation.
CORRIEDOO (n.) : The crucial moment of false recognition in a long passageway encounter. Though both people are perfectly well aware that the other is approaching, they must eventually pretend sudden recognition. They now look up with a glassy smile, as if having spotted each other for the first time, (and are particularly delighted to have done so) shouting out 'Haaaaaallllloooo!' as if to say 'Good grief!! You!! Here!! Of all people! Will I never. Coo. Stap me vitals, etc.'
CORRIEMOILLIE (n.) : The dreadful sinking sensation in a long passageway encounter when both protagonists immediately realise they have plumped for the corriedoo (q.v.) much too early as they are still a good thirty yards apart. They were embarrassed by the pretence of corriecravie (q.v.) and decided to make use of the corriedoo because they felt silly. This was a mistake as corrievorrie (q.v.) will make them seem far sillier.
CORRIEVORRIE (n.) : Corridor etiquette demands that one a corriedoo (q.v.) has been declared, corrievorrie must be employed. Both protagonists must now embellish their approach with an embarrassing combination of waving, grinning, making idiot faces, doing pirate impressions, and waggling the head from side to side while holding the other person's eyes as the smile drips off their face, until with great relief, they pass each other.
CORRIEMUCHLOCH (n.) : Word describing the kind of person who can make a complete mess of a simple job like walking down a corridor.
CORSTORPHINE (n.) : A very short peremptory service held in monasteries prior to teatime to offer thanks for the benediction of digestive biscuits.
COTTERSTOCK (n.) : A piece of wood used to stir paint and thereafter stored uselessly in a shed in perpetuity.
CRAIL (n. mineral) : Crail is a common kind of rock or gravel found widely across the British Isles. Each individual stone (due to an as yet undiscovered gravitational property) is charged with 'negative buoyancy'. This means that no matter how much crail you remove from the garden, more of it will rise to the surface. Crail is much employed by the Royal Navy for making the paperweights and ashtrays used inside submarines.
CRANLEIGH (n.) : A mood of irrational irritation with everyone and everything.
CROMARTY (n.) : The brittle sludge which clings to the top of ketchup bottles and plastic tomatoes in nasty cafes.
CURRY MALLET (n.) : A large wooden or rubber cub which poachers use to despatch cats or other game which they can only sell to Indian restaurants. For particularly small cats the price obtainable is not worth the cost of expending ammunition.