A New Coining

Actually, not as new as I first thought. Having checked with various sources such as urbandictionary.com , I find that this word has been recognised as existing since at least the turn of the century.


We're nothing if not behind-the-times in Millbrook, you know.


I first came across it, however, in Saturday's Guardian; back inside page, main section, Lucy Mangan's regular column. As everyone knows, all right-thinking people love Lucy Mangan. As, indeed, I suspect do one or two wrong-thinking people.

I think I'll just let Lucy do her thing, she's writing a paragraph or two about Jonathan Frantzen...


"A mixed bag of a week for Big Jon. On the one hand, he is feted for the near-as-dammit Great American Novel. On the other, he discovers during a reading for the BBC's Newsnight Review that the UK edition is riddled with errors because the typesetters opened the wrong computer file, requiring the entire run to be pulped. Then, at his launch at the Serpentine gallery in Hyde Park, a prankster/performance artist/twunt rushed in, snatched the spectacles off the author's nose and ran off into the darkness, leaving a £100,000 ransom note behind.
Police helicopters (no, really) and a member of publisher HarperCollins' staff were scrambled and managed to retrieve the glasses. It's a good job all the Great American Novelists are so renowned for their sense of humour, isn't it? Otherwise, having his nine-years-in-the-making novel associated with so many instances of bungling cretinism might really sting."

I'm sure you can guess which word I so admired. Doesn't "twunt" just say everything you need to know about certain people?