It’s been a good week for ... words

The Eskimo and Inuit are well known for their extensive vocabulary to describe all that cold white stuff with which they are so familiar. But the Scots may have outdone them, with 421 words for snow.

Lexicographers at the University of Glasgow, who are compiling an online thesaurus of Scots words, say they have uncovered hundreds of lesser-known ways of describing wintry weather.

"Snaw-pouther" is fine, driving snow, and "spitters" are small drops or flakes of wind-driven rain or snow. A "skelf" is a large snowflake, and "sneesl" means to begin to rain or snow.

"Feefle" means to swirl while "feuchter" means to fall lightly, or come down in odd flakes. A "flindrikin" is a slight snow-shower.

"Weather has been a vital part of people's lives in Scotland for centuries," explained Susan Rennie, Lecturer in English and Scots Language at the University of Glasgow.

Roibeard O Maolalaigh, head of the university's College of Arts, said he hoped the thesaurus would "provide new insights into the riches and very essence of Scots as a language".

The team admits there could be more terms for snow that they haven't yet logged.

But their next project might even top snow in its lexicographical richness.

The topic? Rain ...

It’s been a bad week for ... Words

Publisher Penguin has just released the first novel of former Smiths singer Morrissey. But early reviews of List Of The Lost, which is set in Boston and centres on a college sports relay team, have not been kind.

The author, famous for his trademark floral props, has said of it “the theme is demonology … the left-handed path of black magic”. Little did we know athletics was so sinister.

The Guardian’s critic Michael Hann wrote of the novel: “All those who shepherded it to print should hang their heads in shame, for it’s hard to imagine anything this bad has been put between covers by anyone other than a vanity publisher.”

Meanwhile, The National’s Julie McDowall tweeted: “There are some appalling sentences in the new Morrissey novel. How can this be the man who wrote How Soon Is Now?”

List Of The Lost is not Morrissey’s first book. In October 2013 he published his memoir, entitled Autobiography, published under the Penguin Classics imprint at its author’s insistence. Autobiography was an instant hit, selling almost 35,000 copies in its first week in print. But Penguin are perhaps a bit miserable now.

Nevertheless, a book by such a charming man could well flourish. Or it might flop like a bunch of old daffodils.