Thursday 23 July 2009

New Book by Former QI Elf

Adam Jacot de Boinod, a QI elf during Series A who amongst other things revealed Albania's love of eyebrows, has written a third book about obscure words.

However, whilst his first two books, The Meaning of Tingo and Toujours Tingo were all about words that exist in other languages that do not exist in English ("Tingo" is a word in the Pascuense language of Easter Island meaning "to borrow things from a friend's house one by one until there's nothing left") his third book, The Wonder of Whiffling is collection of long-forgotten words in English.

Amongst the words included in this new book are:

* Fornale: To spend one's money before one has earned it.

* Cagg: A solemn vow or resolution not to get drunk for a certain time.

* Petrichor: The pleasent smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell.

* Bowerbird: A person who collects an astonishing array of - often useless - objects.

The Wonder of Whiffling is published by Particular Books and will go on sale on 24 September.

You can pre-order at Amazon and Play.

Thursday 9 July 2009

Series G - Sneak Preview

For those of you who cannot wait any longer without seeing something both new and quite interesting, the BBC has posted a preview clip of one of the episodes in Series G on its press office website.

In order to see it, click here, go to the carousel and click the QI entry.