Mulesing, Merkins, Quislings, Tallywags And Refoulment

The Word Collector — Part 40

This is the latest in a series about new words and phrases, specimens collected during expeditions into the deepest, darkest literary and media wilderness, and displayed for your entertainment, elucidation, and enlightenment. These are new to me, but of course, you may know some or all of them already, in which case you are welcome to marvel at my ignorance, an inexhaustible seam of material to be mined.

Refoulment — Every so often a word breaks into general consciousness due to a particular incident or episode, and this one turned up in yesterday’s court verdict on the UK Government’s plan to send refugees to Rwanda, which the court found to be unlawful in its present form. Since the Government doesn’t like the verdict, it has announced it will just change the law. If only such solutions were available to the rest of us, faced with inconvenient rules! So refoulment, since you are dying to know, is the forcible return of refugees or asylum seekers to a country where they are liable to be subjected to persecution. Another new word which I will probably have forgotten by tomorrow!

Chignon — a knot or coil of hair arranged on the back of a woman’s head. This one turned up on BBC “Mastermind”, and produced a familiar smile of triumph from Mrs. Pearce, who knew the answer and I didn’t.

Cave — I saw this word in the agenda for a meeting recently and wondered what on earth potholing, (or spelunking as I discovered this is called in the States and Canada) had to do with the running of the residents’ association whose meeting I was attending. Only to realise, in the slow way that characterises my thought processes, that the word deployed is the Latin meaning “beware”. This perhaps goes to show why foreign words are best italicised, or you may find yourself lost deep underground by mistake. I was pretty rubbish at most subjects at school, though for some reason was reasonably good at languages and Latin in particular. It has little practical value except for helping me out on such occasions.

Peridot — this is used to add emphasis to something, such as “I peridot love John’s articles”, from an excellent series about words used by Gen Z by Yohan J

Quisling — This word cropped up on a radio programme. I had heard it before and knew in general terms it means a traitor but didn’t know its origin until I looked it up. So from Wikipedia, that miracle for the masses, and my go-to reference source:

“Quisling is a term used in Scandinavian languages and in English to mean a citizen or politician of an occupied country who collaborates with an enemy occupying force — or more generally as a synonym for traitor or collaborator. The word originates from the surname of the Norwegian war-time leader Vidkun Quisling, who headed a domestic Nazi collaborationist regime during World War II”.

philology — a noun meaning the branch of knowledge that deals with the structure, historical development, and relationships of a language or languages; literary or classical scholarship. The word is used by translator Matthew Clapham in this article about his daughter’s homework:

Mulesing -the process of removing folds of skin from the tail area of a sheep, intended to reduce fly strike. Seen in a review of a sweater which was apparently made without this painful-sounding process.

Gen Alpha — refers to those born from 2011 onwards, and these soon-to-be teens will no doubt poke fun at their predecessors. The phrase is used in this regular round-up by RC Hammond

Next thanks to author Katherine Earle, who goes by the Medium moniker “The Writrix”, who introduced me to some excellent new words and phrases in a highly entertaining brace of bangers: wanton buffoonery, jiggery-pokery, pratfall, bumfuzzle, blatherskite, slubberdegullion, meretricious persiflage, snickersee, tallywags and merkin. Katherine’s articles are on the links below:

So to explore Katherine’s words and phrases in more detail:

wanton buffoonery- a good phrase that summarises Boris Johnson’s UK premiership very well. The wrong leader at the wrong time.

jiggery-pokery — deceitful or dishonest behaviour. See above.

Pratfall — noun informal-a fall on to one’s buttocks; an embarrassing failure or mistake. As in “He took a pratfall at the Inquiry”.

bumfuzzle- to mix up things or ideas, to jumble or to make unclear, to fail to recognise the difference between; mistake one thing for another, to disconcert; embarrass; or to cause to become disordered.

blatherskite — a person who talks at great length without making much sense, and one that can be applied to many who govern us. For example: “…politicians get away all the time with obscurantist blatherskite….”

slubberdegullion — an archaic noun meaning a slovenly or worthless person.

meretricious persiflage — deceptive banter.

snickersee- A large knife for cutting and stabbing.

tallywags — a man’s testicles.

merkin — an artificial covering of hair for the pubic area.

The Covid Inquiry — Next some fruity language used by politicians at the UK’s Covid Inquiry into how the government (mis)handled the pandemic. Hindsight is a great thing, but one has the impression that my neighbour’s dog could have done a better job than Boris Johnson and his merry band of (almost entirely) men.

“The pessimism-aversion trap” — this phrase is used by Mustafa Suleyman in “The Coming Wave”, and it means the misguided analysis that arises when you are overwhelmed by a fear of confronting potentially dark realities, and the resulting tendency to look the other way. So essentially our tendency to ignore bad news, which describes very well our response to AI, the subject of Mustafa’s excellent book, and climate change, an even greater threat. It is easier to bury our heads in the sand or distract ourselves with celebrity gossip and Netflix (guilty on both counts).

“The containment problem” is a phrase from same book, about the difficulty of limiting the potentially harmful effects of a new technology, which includes this description of the problem:

“As the power of our tools grows exponentially and as access to them rapidly increases, so do the potential harms, an unfolding labyrinth of consequences that no one can fully predict or forestall.”

I hope you enjoyed this collection, and do share any favourites of your own in the comments.

As always, thank you for reading.

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Previous articles from The Word Collector:

Part 39 — Blowing off the hinky cobwebs

Part 38 — A Dreich Case Of Psychoterratic Solastalgia

Part 37 — A Cockamamie Collection Of Highkey Zhuzh

Part 36 — Keggers, Kerning, Çay and Crickets

Part 35 — Murmuring judges and anhedonia

Part 34 — A-quomodocunquizing-borborygmus

Part 33 — Going Monk Mode In Taumata­whakatangihanga­koauau­o­tamatea­turi­pukaka­piki­maunga­horo­nuku­pokai­whenua­ki­tana­tahu

Part 32 — Turpitudinous Tourons

Part 31 — Hurkle durkle, medicanes and misophonia

Part 30 — Immortal earworms

Part 29 — Government on the RAAC

Part 28 –Saved by a deus ex machina

Part 27 — Pre-Lapsarian Yakers

Part 26 — Fegans, Jorts, Rababs And Scotch Bonnets

Part 25 — Fissiparous Hegemony

Part 24 — Lollygag And Booktok

Part 23 — Patronymics And Samovars

Part 22 — Medium Is No Chronofage If YRMIRY

Part 21 — Everything Is Eellogofusciouhipoppokunurious

Part 20 — Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia And The Matthew Effect

Part 19 — A Nappuccino And Some Typo-Squatting

Part 18 — Yeeting Detritovres

Part 17 — An Inverted Pyramid Of Piffle On The Bed Of Procrustes

Part 16 — Having The Jones And Partisan Acrimony

Part 15 — Spycops In The Boondocks

Part 14 — Harlots, Stochastic Parrots, And The Devil’s Cufflinks

Part 13 — The Things We Make Exceptional

Part 12 — “Semper Fidelis” And Semantic Symbiosis

Part 11 — Heliophobic Hikikomori

Part 10 — Lenticular Clouds And Peque Peques

Part 9 — Big Red Boots And Nepo Babies

Part 8 — A Patina Of Smilies

Part 7 — Atavistic frou frou

Part 6-Mouth Breathers And Pearl Clutchers

Part 5 — The Lexophile’s Latest List

Part 4 — Revenge of the word collector

Part 3- An Etymological Extravaganza

Part 2- Return Of The Word Collector

Part 1 — A Moment In The Sun