Steatopygic. Hadeharia. Misodoctakleidist. Grapholagnia. Basorexia. Petrichor. Apodyopsis. Lygerastia. Krukolibidinous. Colposinquanonia. Vulva. The English language is engorged to the point of arrestable obscenity with hundreds of thousands of words with the most delicious meaning, exquisite construction and whimperingly apposite usefulness that it seems the very height of ingratitude to find oneself ever lost for words.

But such is the unpredictable nature of human experience that occasionally even the most pantingly fervent of lexicographers can find that without warning they are still forced to grope crudely around for the most felicitous word to describe the particularly unusual situation in which they find themselves. It was with this sense of shame burning fiercely somewhere about my colon that in the last few weeks of 2007 I decided to make a list of some of the occasions in which I encountered a scenario or sensation without suitable linguistic expression and coin my own neologisms for the edification of you, lovely reader.

Subselfish
The unshakable feeling that whatever you might be doing, somewhere Will Self is doing it better.

Paxosomnia
The inexplicably enjoyable yet undeniably disgusted feeling you wake up with after having had a dirty dream about someone off Newsnight. See also allsoppicating, the act of clearing up after such a dream.

Upsilonification
The practice of inserting superfluous letters, often Y, into a child's name in a painful attempt to render it unique. Brandilynne. Gyn'nifyrr. Chayenne-Fonduu.

Dispomhatted
A slightly surprising sensation, not unlike that created by having your bobble hat blown off in a breeze that was stiffer than you first thought.