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The figure portrayed on this famous record cover could be described as a practitioner of nosism
Word of the Week: It sounds like a strange religion or nasal habit, but from Latin ‘nos’, this is the practice of using the ‘we’ pronoun when really only referring oneself in action or opinion - it’s more common in song than ‘we’ might imagine
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The Ariston Organette
Word of the Week: It’s a mechanical, hand-operated organ instrument first manufactured in the late 1870s playing music from perforated paper, cardboard, or metal disks on wooden rolls or “cobs” that clunkily and rather beautifully captures another era
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The phorminx (centre) alongside the harp and lyre.
Word of the week: Taking us back to some of the earliest ever music, in ancient Greek φόρμιγξ, the phorminx, a developed form of lyre, is one of the oldest instruments and the a forerunner to the kithara
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From The Quincunx, the 1989 novel by Charles Palliser
Word of the week: This ancient symbolic word is not really one to sing, but points down many cultural roads through history, as well as unearthing a variety of lesser known music
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Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820
Word of the week: What comes around … this week's rather shapely word circles culture in many directions – from medieval French poetry to a 17th-century musical form all the way to modern slang on sport stars to derogatory cars
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How do you recreate this on a record?
Word of the week: An evocative term suitable for hearing the effects of changeable weather, this is a lesser known word for a musical instrument used to recreate the sound of thunder. But how? And who uses it?
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A Seagull S6 acoustic guitar with a beautiful burnt umber finish
Word of the week: Strong in sound and pleasing to say, this week’s word is a dark brown with a hue of yellow or red, depending on type, but does it ever show its true colours in song?
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Watch out for watchet - seventh from right
Word of the week: It sounds like a small timepiece or a low-key warning, but this is really word of a shade of pale blue, an angler's fly, and also a harbour town in Somerset
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The Maui Xaphoon in C
Word of the week: It's another word for bamboo saxophone, handily pocket sized, cheaper than its metal cousin being without complex valves, and closer to a clarinet, yet sounding remarkably sax-like using a similar mouthpiece and reed
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But what happens after 22 miles?
Word of the week: Usually our entries are historical obscurities, but this verb is not yet in the formal lexicon, has only entered language via online circulation, yet has still inspired recent music and its definition harks back to great traditions
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David Bowie could certainly be described as epalpebrate in this still from The Man Who Fell To Earth
Word of the Week: It's an obscure adjective from the late 19th century to describe a person lacking something we all take for granted, but definitely notice when they are missing – eyebrows
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XTC like to talk about the foppotee, but not always in a derogatory way
Word of the week: It’s a very rare and also pleasant sounding, poetic word that was briefly used in the 17th century, but is in fact derogatory, pertaining to simpleton. It could well describe much behaviour in modern life too. But in songs, is it always wrong to be a foppotee?
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Short-tailed gymnure
Word of the week: Survival concerns? Maybe be more gymnure. Small, elusive and nocturnal, it's not a rat, nor a shrew, but a furry hedgehog, a Galericinae from the Erinaceidae family, with acute senses, especially of smell, and likely resembles the earliest form of mammal
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Miso soup
Word of the week: A derivative of the French jus for juice, this rarely tasted mid-17th-century word means full of broth or soup, a deliciously evocative adjective that bubbles up a variety of associations, but does it appear in song?
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Almost murklins time …
Word of the week: Not to be confused with the pubic wig worn by prostitutes of old and other diseased ridden individuals (the merkin), this rare adjective from the 16th and 17th century simply means ‘in the dark’, an umbrella term to accompany activity
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That’s one quomodocunquizing method …
Word of the week: It's a bit of a mouthful, but also an adjective describing that which makes money in any possible way, from the Latin quomodocunque, and of course if not actually using the word, there are a few songs on the subject
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Can you get a Handel on what this week’s word might be?
Word of the week: It's an obscure, archaic 19th-century word with a definition almost as strangely obvious and clear as what it describes isn't – poor, illegible handwriting, and bad spelling and grammar
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Jarvis Cocker playfully addresses the issue of the volgivagant in a classic number from 1995
Word of the week: It’s an obsolete 17th-century term pertaining to the common masses and so-called more vulgar or baser tastes within the uneducated and poor, but something that remains as relevant today in the pursuits of cultural or political popularism
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Travel broadens the mind, one hopes, with a spot of some 19th-century xenization in Egypt
Word of the week: This archaic term from the 19th century means travelling as a stranger in a foreign country, implying learning, discovery and broadening of the mind – quite topical in the current political climate
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The yaffingale, or green woodpecker
Word of the week: It’s an archaic, southern English name for the European green woodpecker, picus viridis, that species of beautiful colour that taps on softer wood trunks to feed and nest, but how does such a bird come up in song?
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