For those of you who are unaware of The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, they're books. Good books. Funny books. Books that, to be concise, lend place-names to things or experiences as yet un-named.

H2G2 is the perfect place to continue Douglas and John's efforts to make the signposts of the world more meaningful and fun, so if you like to have a contribution considered for inclusion in this, The Even Deeper Meaning of Liff, please start a conversation below with your definition. Don't forget that the words have to be genuine place names - and no plagiarising the originals, please. That would be very, very naughty.

Alternatively, if you would like to see your home town added, or know of any funny-sounding place-names, please post those, and our more experienced Liff-ers will bash out a definition or two for your approval.

"See Liff" means a reference to the original Liff books.

• Ibiza (n.)
  • Like a torquay (qv), only a foreign place name which one's own countrymen are unable to pronounce correctly.
• Idvies (n.)
  • Psychosomatically-induced itching and scratching whilst watching wildlife documentaries about insects. Idvies are becoming increasingly common as modern photographic techniques provide ever-more hideously enlarged images.
• Ingoldmells (pl.n.)
  • Collective noun for the assortment of strangeware sported by grandmothers on their mantelpieces.
• Ingst (n.)
  • Acute anxiety upon noticing the long-expired "eat by" date on the packaging of the meal that you have just consumed.
• Inverguseran (adj.)
  • Resistant to changing one's accustomed brand or style of underpants.
• Inverquharity (vb.)
  • The terrible urge to laugh during occasions that demand dignified silence. The ability to suppress the urge is inversely proportional to the solemnity of the occasion.
• Inverquhomery (n.)
  • Grovelling apologies made afterwards to atone for one's Inverquharity (qv).
• Isipingo (vb.)
  • To embarass one's self by calling "House!!" at a bingo hall, only to discover that you misheard a number earlier in the session, and are still one short.
• Itchen Abbas (n.)
  • The fumbling with keys in one's pocket while unsuccessfully attempting to not let the attractive person you're talking to realise you're actually scratching a very sensitive area.
• Kegworth (n.)
  • The exact volume that must be poured from a new beer barrel before the beer is considered palatable. In student bars
    1 Kegworth = 10ml.
• Ketsby (n.)
  • Skittish behaviour adopted by a Miningsby (qv).
• Killadysert (n.)
  • The moment when a cinema audience realises that the alien/lunatic/monster that they had presumed dead, isn't, but is in fact about to get up and kill/squash/eat the victim.
• Kilnsea (n.)
  • A condemned caravan on a camp-site which is getting closer to falling over the clifftop due to coastal erosion and is therefore not worth the bother of rescuing it.
• Kinclaven (n.)
  • Collective term for a posse of visiting relatives, particularly one that includes two or more Kinfauns (qv).
• Kineff (n.)
  • Expletive uttered whilst standing and staring at the unbelievable amount of Kinmuck (qv) that you now have to clean up.
• Kinfauns (n.)
  • Generic term for young Nephews or Nieces, especially of the energetic and boisterous variety.
• Kingarth (n.)
  • Feeling of dread immediately prior to the arrival of a Kinclaven (qv).
• Kinkell Bridge (n.)
  • A point of chirality-reversal in a Stisted (qv) telephone lead, which can only be removed by painstakingly coaxing it along to one end.
• Kinloch Bervie (vb.)
  • To hurriedly lock away all valuable/breakable objects prior to the arrival of a Kinclaven (qv).
• Kinmuck (n.)
  • The general chaos and detritus left in your house by a Kinclaven (qv). Mostly due to the knocking-over and trampling-upon of biscuits, bottles, plates, cups, crisps, CDs, book cases, etc.
• Kinsham (vb.)
  • Pretending to enjoy the company of mad Uncles and dotty old Aunts in the hope of being included in their Will.
• Kirkbuddo (n.)
  • Generic term for the expendable crew-member who accompanies the Captain of the Enterprise on away missions.
• Kirkby Overblow (n.)
  • Last-minute adjustments to Mr Shatner's wig.
• Knotty Ash (n.)
  • The charred remains of an unbelievably important and irreplaceable document that you accidentally set on fire, which you are now trying to think of a way to reconstruct even though you know full well that combustion is generally a one-way process.
• Kyle of Tongue (n., Psychiatric)
  • Irrational anxiety caused by wondering whether or not the ox tongue in your sandwich is tasting you right back.
• Kylestrome (n.)
  • The flood of hormones unleashed in the pubescent human female which for the next ten years rules out any hope of logical communication with the male of the species.
• Ladbroke (n.)
  • Male equivalent of the Kylestrome (qv). Equally if not more debilitating.
• Lendalfoot (n. medical)
  • The result of killing all feeling in one foot by sitting on it or resting your other foot on it, and not realising until you try to stand on it, ending up in a crumpled whimpering heap.
• Legbourne (n.)
  • One who insists on walking whatever the weather.
• Leven (n.)
  • A loaf of bread that's been stuffed in a carrier-bag with 2 pints of milk and a box of Daz.
• Liscard (n.)
  • A person who spends more time cataloguing, classifying and cross-indexing his CD collection than actually listening to it. Nowadays, most Liscards use a home computer, but the name originates from the days when it was all done with card-indexes.
• Litherland (n.)
  • The name of a shop that sells nothing but different types of soap.
• Little Altcar (n.)
  • A type of scruffy kid that lives in car parks and offers to "mind your car for you mister?", which roughly translates as "give me 50p or you'll never see your hub caps again".
• Little Bongs (n.)
  • A play-school and creche for the children of pot-heads.
• Little Cawthorpe (n.)
  • A childhood associate, charming to your mother, but evil incarnate elsewhere.
• Littleton Pannel (n.)
  • A slightly larger version of a cat-flap, designed to allow small children access to and from the garden without having to bother the parents. (See also: Bainshole.)
• Long Eaton (n.)
  • A late-night malingerer of the sort that the staff of restaurants wish would bloody well finish their meal and go home so that they can.
• Long Riston (vb.)
  • To settle down to an afternoon's self-abuse while the house is empty.
• Lower Whatley (n. Technical)
  • In the programming language "C," a closing-bracket in a deeply-nested subroutine which appears to be unrelated to any particular opening-bracket, and which takes longer to debug than it took to write the whole bloody program in the first place.
• Ludford Magna (n.)
  • The head male of a monied family.
• Ludford Parva (n.)
  • The youngest offspring of the Ludford Magna (qv) who stands to inherit the family debt.
• Lusby (n.)
  • The talk with which a man tries to persuade his partner to wake up but not get out of bed on a Sunday morning.
• Lydiate (n.)
  • Somebody who is so stupid that they are unable to grasp just how abysmally stupid they really are.
• Madeley (n.)
  • A girl who makes it quite clear to everybody by her demeanour that she is only out on a date with this idiot because her so-called "friends" arranged it for her.
• Maghull (n.)
  • The gunge at the bottom of a fisherman's tackle box. Consisting typically of dead worms, maggott pupae and mouldy bits of sandwiches dampened with pond water. Many anglers consider it unlucky to ever clear this out, but curiously it eventually ceases to increase in volume, possibly due to the emergence of some sort of localised self-regulating ecosystem.
• Malta (n.)
  • The one Malteeser in the packet which is either bizarrely chewy or tooth-chippingly solid.
• Mamble (n.)
  • To converse with your dentist through a mouthfull of assorted dental equipment, cotton wadding, suction devices, etc.
• Manby (adj.)
  • Descriptive of the style of writing used in Loaded magazine.
• Manningtree (n.)
  • A wall-mounted board featuring precisely placed nails or pegs, custom made by a DIY enthusiast, to hold all his tools in a particular pattern.
• Maufant (vb.)
  • Having the uneasy feeling that Woody Allen is about to release another film.
• Mawthorpe (n.)
  • The conservatory of an old peoples’ home on a Sunday afternoon after dinner when they sleep with heads back and mouths agape.
• Medlam (n.)
  • An old London hospital for silly people; slight disorganisation.
• Melling (vb.)
  • A strange dance performed in A-level chemistry labs; The student will attempt to identify the gaseous product of a chemical reaction by gently wafting his hand across the top of the test-tube towards his nose, thereby hoping to catch the merest whiff. Despite this cautious approach, the student inhales a lungfull of noxious vapour, and is seen to exit the lab staggering and choking. Occasionally the performance will end with the student declaring "it smells like bitter-almonds," thereby correctly identifying the gas as Hydrogen Cyanide just before expiring.
• Messingham (n.)
  • Sex that is so clumsily unsatisfying that the only purpose it serves is to give you the additional chore of making the bed in the morning.
• Metheringham (n.)
  • Someone who studies the art of wasting time.
• Mid Lavant (n.)
  • The precise moment during a bath or shower when statistically the phone is most likely to ring, this being when the bather is entirely covered in soap.
• Mill Craig (n.)
  • An irresistable urge felt by watercolour artists to seek out weed-choked canals and derelict windmills.
• Miningsby (n.)
  • A male music or film star whose mainstay involves trying to make people question his sexuality.
• Minting (ptcpl.vb.)
  • Searching for sweets in the trouser pockets so frenetically that people suspect you of doing something else.
• Mistley (adj.)
  • Of a shop-keeper who is suspicious of those who buy both cigarettes and cigarette papers in the same transaction.
• Mogerhanger (n.)
  • A cat that has just attempted to walk across a swing-lid bin. (see also 'Felindre').
• Moreton (vb.)
  • Cringeingly afraid of tightening a new guitar string any further in case it snaps.
• Mousehole (n.)
  • The vacant space left in a library-owned computer pointing device after a juvenile joker has stolen the little rubber coated ball.
• Muckton (n.)
  • A communal student kitchen in an all-male flat.
• Mumby (adj.)
  • Of your girlfriend’s voice when talking about babies, that she wishes you to respond positively.
• Murroes (n.)
  • Tram-lines formed by dragging a fork across mashed potato.
• Nedging (vb.)
  • Making short-range shuffling movements to close the gaps in a queue. The resulting physical compaction has no effect whatsoever on the actual waiting time, but anyone who forgets or refuses to Nedge will invariably receive very dark looks from the rest of the queue.
• Nethercleuch (vb.)
  • Of human males, to experience a queasy sympathetic reaction in the nether regions upon hearing the words "eunuch" or "castration."
• Nettilling (ptcpl. vb.)
  • Carrying out an exciting internet romance.
• Newburgh (vb.)
  • To bestow a fresh name upon a place in the hope that it will fool the public into forgetting whatever vile event took place there, e.g. Windscale became Sellafield after the radiation leaks and Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd for political reasons.
• Newsham (n.)
  • A sneeze that nearly happens, goes away for a bit, then returns with renewed vigour just when you're least expecting it. Newshams account for some 50% of Page Moss (qv). (See also: Halsnead.)
• Newton-by-Toft (n.)
  • An ancient method of public humiliation.
• Newton-le-Willows (n.)
  • A little-known member of Robin Hood's band whose job it was to calculate the optimum height from which to drop out of the trees during an ambush. The formula used was; dPo/dPy = (d-(s+h/2)).G.T-2, Where Po,Py are the probabilities of knocking out your opponent or yourself, d,s,h are the heights of drop, sherriff's man and his horse, G is acceleration due to gravity, and T is the the Square Root of the tree.
• Newtonloan (n.)
  • A phenomenon similar to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle whereby cartoon characters can "borrow" negative gravitational energy just long enough to facilitate a scramble back onto whatever it is they fell off.
• Newton Poppleford (n.)
  • A crackpot theorist who believes that he will overturn science and the laws of physics as we know them. Since the rise of the Internet, Newton Popplefords have received more public attention than real scientists.
• Nunsfield (n.)
  • Any place in which you feel guilty after swearing.
• Old Fletton (n.)
  • Generic term for the remnants of old schoolroom projectiles (mostly chewed up balls of paper) festooning desks, ceilings, backs of teacher's heads, etc. English boarding-schools boast some of the finest patinas of Old Fletton in the world, having been accumulating it far longer than most.
• Old Leake (n.)
  • Official title of the senior Welshman in a village.
• Olinda (n.)
  • A bombshell remark delivered in a casual throwaway manner between departing females. (Example; "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you ... my baby's DNA test matched your husband. Bye").
• Ormsby (n.)
  • The tone of voice used by maths professors, headmasters, clergy, and old politicians that signifies that any forthcoming speech will be immensely boring.
• Orrell (n.)
  • A nasty after-taste caused by Penketh (q.v.) on a pencil with a cheap gritty rubber on the top.
• Oujda (n.)
  • Any item of gaudy paraphernalia employed by fraudulent psychics: enormous dangly earrings, Latvian scarves, shiny aquarium-stones, Dream-Catcher hoops, etc.
• Overstowey (n.)
  • The sort of person who keeps a 5-year supply of frozen food in the cellar just in case we're invaded by Martians.
• Page Moss (n. Collective)
  • The unidentifiable discolourations and stains in library books which make you wonder what the hell the previous borrowers were eating, drinking or doing whilst reading it. (See also 'Newsham').
• Paignton (n.)
  • Any one of the ridiculously excess letters in names like Cholmondley and Featherstonehaugh.
• Painters Forstal (n.)
  • A short speech, or preamble, given by garage staff to those who have come to collect their car after re-spraying. Phrases such as "it may not be an EXACT colour match" are employed to prepare the customer for the shock.
• Palnackie (n.)
  • A drunk who drapes himself around your neck and won't let go until you have agreed with him at least seven times that he is your best mate (or vice versa).
• Partney (n.)
  • Closing-time bartering ritual in which a pint of ale is purchased by a crony in exchange for four cigarettes.
• Path of Condie (n.)
  • A complex mathematical function describing the random-walk taken by a salt-shaker during a meal in a restaurant. It is one of the pivotal equations of Bistromathics. Also known as the Travelling Saltcellar Problem, it is only soluble in polynomial brine.
• Pease Pottage (n.)
  • A home-made meal of your granny's devising which you have never tasted the like of since and have never been able to duplicate despite having all the necessary ingredients. The missing ingredient is in fact a set of youthful taste-buds unsullied by years of abuse with alcohol, tobacco or curries.
• Peasley Cross (vb.)
  • A diversionary tactic used on infants who refuse to eat their vegetables. Basically, it involves waving some interesting-looking object around to divert their attention long enough to ram a spoonful of dinner into their open mouth.
• Penderyn (vb.)
  • Wondering where the hell the pencil you had a second ago has got to. The quickest way to find it is to go and get another one, as this will immediately render the lost one visible again.
• Penketh (vb.)
  • Involuntary chewing or nibbling at the tops of pens and pencils during deep thought or serious pondering. Watson, writing of Holmes: "it was clearly a three-pencil problem".
• Phuket (n.)
  • A remark or comment, thought by the perpetrator to be witty and original, but which has, in fact, been made millions of times before, and is more likely to incite extreme irritation and/or violence. Derived from the place in Thailand, the name of which people insist on mispronouncing in the mistaken belief that doing so is funny.
• Pillerton Priors (n.)
  • The feeling that you're never going to be able to swallow the enormous tablets you've just been prescribed.
• Pinwherry (n.)
  • The nagging feeling that someone, somewhere, knows all of your Personal Identification Numbers and Internet Passwords and is not afraid to use them.
• Plaish (n.)
  • The sound of a wet fish being introduced to a hot frying pan.
• Pocklinton (n.)
  • A group of mothers in a chemist buying zit lotions and anti-bacterial facewash for their teenage children.
• Polgooth (n.)
  • A Monty Python fan who can recite the Parrott Sketch verbatim.
• Posso (n.)
  • Collective term for the crowd of drunks who form an appreciative audience around somebody even drunker. The most inebriated member of the Posso may in turn become the focus should the original become unconscious.
• Poulton-Cum-Spittle (n.)
  • A publishing house specialising in books on the history, design and manufacture of ceramic urinals and spittoons.
• Presnerb (n.)
  • A youth who cannot walk past a pedestrian-crossing without unnecessarily pressing the button.
• Prignitz (n.)
  • A critic who instantly decries what is popular just to be bloody-minded and to infuriate people.
• Prudhoe (n.)
  • An old or unserviceable rake, hoe or other handled implement retained by farmers for the purpose of poking dead sheep to see if they really are dead.
• Pumpherston (n.)
  • One who feels the need to plump up all the cushions in the room before they can settle down to do anything else.
• Quakers Yard (n.)
  • The corner of the garden that fills up with retching drunks towards the tail end of a party.
• Raploch (n.)
  • A condition afflicting certain musicians, whereby they are unable to escape from a tiny localised basin of attraction within the almost boundless landscapes of harmonic/melodic/rhythmic phase-space.
• Rhosybol (adj.)
  • Descriptive of the impossibly vigorous, bushy and colourful appearance of plants and flowers in gardening catalogs.
• Rickell (n.)
  • The little stumbly move performed by a walking-stick-wielding old lady in front of you as she makes to cross the road. This makes you jump forward to stop her falling over, and ensures her an escort for the rest of her journey.
• Rochdale (n.)
  • A retirement-home for pot-heads, similar to Grassendale (see above), but covering the North of England (a third home, "Dunspliffin", is situated in Scotland).
• Rudgeway (n.)
  • A pathway eroded by people taking the shortest route across a park or grassy area instead of the slightly longer official one. Enlightened planners have now learned to defer the laying of paths until Rudgeways have formed naturally, as these can then be paved-over and adopted as the official routes.
• Ruecastle (vb.)
  • To feel rather sad when the tide obliterates your lovingly constructed sandcastle.
• Rushock (n.)
  • That part of a horror film where the slow/lumbering/limping monster/alien/psychopath unexpectedly leaps out in front of the victim, who despite running much faster for the past half-hour has apparently gained no ground whatsoever.
• Ruskington (n.)
  • Behavioural trait in which a childless person will stare in disbelief at the baby-food shelf in a supermarket for minutes before waking up and moving on.
• Rusper (n.)
  • One who is skilled in the art of opening packets of sweets very quietly inside their pocket so that they don't have to share them with anyone.