Table of Contents
Preface xv
A Turn-up for the Books 1
A Game of Chicken 3
Hydrogentlemanly 5
The Old and New Testicle 7
Parenthetical Codpieces 9
Suffering for my Underwear 12
Pans 13
Miltonic Meanders 15
Bloody Typical Semantic Shifts 18
The Proof of the Pudding 21
Susage Poison in your Face 23
Bows and Arrows and Cats 25
Black and White 28
Hat Cheque Point Charlie 31
Sex and Bread 33
Concealed Farts 37
Wool 39
Turkey 43
Insulting Foods 46
Folk Etymology 47
Butterflies of the World 50
Psychoanalysis and the Release of the Butterfly 52
The Villains of the Language 57
Two Executioners and a Doctor 58
Thomas Crapper 61
Mythical Acronyms 66
John the Baptist and the Sound of Music 69
Organic, Organised, Organs 71
Clipping 73
Buffalo 73
Antanaclasis 76
China 79
Coincidences and Patterns 80
Frankly, My Dear Frankfurter 83
Beastly Foreigners 84
Pejoratives 86
Ciao, Slave Driver 89
Robots 91
Terminators and Prejudice 93
Terminators and Equators 95
Equality in Ecuador 96
Bogeys 98
Bugbears and Bedbugs 100
Von Munchausen's Computer 103
SPAM (not spam) 105
Heroin 107
Morphing De Quincey and Shelley 108
Star-Spangled Drinking Songs 111
Torpedoes and Turtles 114
From Mount Vernon to Portobello Road with a Hangover 117
A Punch of Drinks 118
The Scampering Champion of the Champagne Campaign 121
Insulting Names 124
Peter Pan 127
Herbaceous Communication 130
Papa was a Saxum Volutum 133
Flying Peters 135
Venezuela and Venus and Venice 137
What News on the Rialto? 138
Magazines 140
Dick Snary 142
Autopeotomy 146
Water Closets for Russia 151
Fat Gunhilda 153
Queen Gunhilda and the Gadgets 155
Shell 156
In a Nutshell 158
The Iliad 159
The Human Body 162
The Five Fingers 163
Hoax Bodies 166
Bunking and Debunking 169
The Anglo-Saxon Mystery 171
The Sedge-Strewn Stream and Globalisation 176
Coffee 179
Cappuccino Monks 181
Called to the Bar 182
Ignorami 184
Fossil-less 188
The Frequentative Suffix 191
Pending 193
Worms and their Turnings 194
Mathematics 196
Stellafied and Oily Beavers 199
Beards 201
Islands 203
Sandwich Islands 208
The French Revolution in English Words 212
Romance Languages 213
Peripatetic Peoples 215
From Bohemia to California (via Primrose Hill) 217
California 220
The Hash Guys 223
Drugs 227
Pleasing Pslams 228
Biblical Errors 231
Salt 234
Halcyon Days 236
Dog Days 238
Cynical Dogs 240
Greek Education and Fastchild 241
Cybermen 243
Turning Trix 245
Amateur-Lovers 246
Dirty Money 248
Death Pledges 250
Wagering War 252
Strapped for Cash 253
Fast Bucks and Dead Ones 254
The Buck Steps here 257
Back to Howth Castle and Environs 259
Quizzes 261
The Cream of the Sources 277
