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Are you 'kwl' or 'cool'? Lucy Mangan

looks at your word submissions from
the last fortnight - New on the blog Word Lovers' blog

Posted by Collins Language @ Friday 12 February 2016

News reaches me via contributor kaiwaiipanda that if you are

under a certain age, you do not write cool in your texts. It is
apparently only cool to write kwl.
I m old, fthr tm.
It is possible that they have sound reasons for this otherwise
inexcusable behaviour, namely trying to avoid the iHunch
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(courtesy of contributor Tommy) the stoop you develop from

hunching over your phone for too many hours of your life. But I
suspect not. So let us embark on our fortnightly celebration of new
submissions to the Collins online dictionary with renewed zeal. We
are clearly the last line of defence between total semantic and
orthographic annihilation.
It is fitting, therefore, that two (new) contributors have contributed
two words about words to our latest batch of goodies. WHamilton
gives us hypophora a figure of speech in a question is posed
and (unlike the case of its rhetorical cousin) answered by the
speaker and WordWorkLesley supplies caesura, an intentional
pause (usually halfway-ish) in a line of poetry that corresponds with
what youd do naturally in speech rather than according to metric
rules to give the piece shape and rhythm. Its the break after To be
or not to be, for example, or between Popes assertions that while to
err is human, to forgive is divine.
And let us grab our full complement of letters and revel in
someones brainwave and tikitakas submission (possibly they are
one and the same thing, in which case double kudos, tikitaka!)
aibophobia which means fear of palindromes and pleased me
greatly.
Tikitaka also gives us metagrobologist, meaning someone who
does, studies, collects or creates puzzles maybe mechanical
puzzles only, since this is what the online magazine for aficionados
themetagrobologist.co.uk seems to concentrate on, but I cannot be
sure. This seems like an area ripe for internecine warfare and
nomenclatural splintering, with fans of Rubiks Cube, devoted
anagrammers and dedicated logic puzzlers all staking out their own
territories not realising that the cruciverbalists long ago staked out
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the moral high ground and have been looking down on them ever
since.
And let us reach far back in time, when men were men, women were
women, vowels were present and we had need of words such as
winnet, contributed by davidtodd, who tells me that it is the name
of a securing device on a ships pilot ladder. A pilot ladder itself is a
special form of rope ladder used on cargo ships, whose decks are
usually so far above the waterline than a lowered ladder is generally
the only way anyone can get aboard or disembark at sea.
Unfortunately, I am professionally bound to tell you that in the darker
corners of the internet winnet is also regional British term for any
bits of poo that adhere to the hairy bumhole of an even hairier
mammal. Synonyms include clagnuts, clinkers and my
particular favourite shittles. Put that in your smartphone and text
it.
C u in 2 wks.