Rec. #239: The Deeper Meaning of Liff

What: The subtitle is: "A Dictionary of Things There Aren't Any Words for Yet." This pretty neatly sums up the concept, which is quite good fun.

Comparable to: The book is co-authored by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, both British comedy writers, so it's rather British-comedy-writer-esque, in an Adams and Lloyd kind of way.

Representative entries:

Abalemma: "The agonizing situation in which there is only one possible decision but you still can't make it."

Ahenny: "The way people stand when examining other people’s bookshelves."

Alcoy: "Wanting to be bullied into having another drink."

Alltami: "The ancient art of being able to balance the hot and cold shower taps."

Aubusson: "The hairstyle a girl adopts for a special occasion which suddenly gives you a sense of what she will look like in twenty years' time."

You might not like it if: Adams and Lloyd assign existing place names to their definitions, and you sort of wish they had invented completely new words. You don't know why, but you just think it might have been better that way, somehow.

How to get it: Buyable, borrowable, Kindle-able.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Douglas Adams is represented elsewhere on this blog by The Salmon of Doubt (Rec. #4), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Rec. #42), Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (Rec. #162), The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Rec. #198), and Life, the Universe and Everything (Rec. #230).