Another interesting little book that I picked up at a second hand bookshop is called Sniglets. The tag line explains that a “snig’lit” is any word that doesn’t appear in the dictionary but should. After reading that fascinating title was it any wonder that I bought the book?

This little volume is full of illustrations and reads like a dictionary. The words are arranged alphabetically with phonetic pronunciations provided helpfully in parentheses. Here are a few of my favourite sniglets. Enjoy!

• Applaflammaphobia = Fear that upon departing for holiday, you’ve left an appliance on that will burn the house to the ground.
• Beavo = A pencil with teeth marks all over it.
• Crayollia = The area on the refrigerator where children’s drawings are displayed.
• Dasho = The area between a car’s windscreen and dashboard where coins, pencils, etc. cannot be humanly retrieved.
• Eiffelites = Gangly people sitting in front of you at the cinema who, no matter what direction you lean in, follow suit.
• Foys = Missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that you later find stuck to the underside of your arm.
• Frust = The small line of debris that refuses to be swept on to the dustpan and keeps backing a person across the room until he finally decides to give up and sweep it under the rug.
• Grantnap = The extra five minutes of sleep you allow yourself that somehow makes all the difference in the world.
• Hozone = The place where one sock in every laundry load disappears to.
• Memomimicry = The brief lapse in a phone conversation where you pretend to be getting a pencil to write down an important message.
• Ninker = Any utensil that positions itself inside a drawer to prevent the drawer from opening.
• Oopzama = Sudden scratching of scalp or face upon realisation that the person you were waving at isn’t who you thought it was.
• Pedaeration = Perfect body heat achieved by having one leg under the sheet and one hanging off the edge of the bed.
• Phistel = The brake pedal on the passenger side of the car that you wish existed when you’re riding with a lunatic.
• Scadink = The annoying build-up of ink on the end of a ball-point pen.
• Sloopage = The tendency of hot dogs, hamburgers, and sandwich contents to slip from between their covers. (This word is illustrated on the book’s cover pictured above.)
• Sloovers = Remnants of soap too small to use but too big to throw away.
• Umbroglio = Any conflict with an umbrella on a windy day.
• Yardribbons = The unmowed patches of grass discovered after one has put away the mower.

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash