L is for Lollop

Welcome back to FWiG's April A-to-Z Odditorium of Forgotten English!

Lollop: To lounge or saunter heavily. Loll-poop: a sluggish sedentary lounger. Literally, one who is sluggish in the stern.

The term is more endearing when applied to rabbits, especially wascally wabbits.

Not to be confused with trollop; a slovenly woman or prostitute, or trollipop; a slovenly woman or prostitute on a stick.

Source: Vocabulary of East Anglia (1830) Rev. Robert Forby
Google hits: 99400


Lug-and-a-bite: A boy flings an apple some distance. The others race for it. The winner takes a bite as fast as he can while his opponents lug at his ears. He bears it as long as he can then launches the apple. The sport is resumed.

The alternate name for this pastime might have been BAGI; acronym for Boys Are Generally Idiots.

We never played lug-and-a-bite when I was a kid but we did play Chinese Nose Torture which is about equal in sophistication and usefulness: All boys but one conspire to tackle the unsuspecting target who is held prone on his back, his head firmly stilled, while the ringleader selects a choice blade of grass, snaps it off the lawn and inserts it up the prone boy's nose. Great fun I can report, though I admit I was never the inserter or the insertee by the way; but a perennial limb anchorer. While this sport seems to have gone by the by, the term Chinese nose torture persists but now in reference to that nation's wild proliferance of coal-burning power plants.

Okay, here's the very best advice you'll ever receive: Do not Google-image the phrase Chinese Nose Torture or you will likely never sleep again. Seriously. Don't.

Source: Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words (1855) James Halliwell
Google hits: 1190


Lumming: The weather condition featuring heavy rain; a galloway. Akin to loom (a mist or fog)

Kaneohe Ranch, Oahu, Hawaii reported 247 straight days with rain from August 27 1993 to April 30 1994.

In Shanghai, February-March 2009, twenty days of non-stop rain marked a twenty per cent rise in depression-related healthcare events. Officials advised bright lights, music and exercise as anti-depression measures. I would have suggested staying indoors but what do I know?

Not to be confused with lemmings which are miniature workers of very brief mortality, specializing as diggers, climbers, bashers, stoppers, exploders etc. What the hell am I talking about? I don't know.

Source: Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia (1824) John MacTaggart
Google hits: 12900

The times we had, oh when the wind would blow with rain and snow, were not all bad.