Competition | 13 March 2010

In Competition No. 2637 you were invited to take an existing word and alter it by a) adding a letter; b) changing a letter; and c) deleting a letter; and to supply definitions for all three new words.

This challenge is a shameless rip-off of the legendary change-a-letter competition over at the Washington Post’s ‘Style Invitational’, where ingenious new permutations of this crowd-pleaser appear at regular intervals and attract a mammoth postbag. Judging by the bombardment of entries from some quarters, it proved equally popular with Spectator competitors, one of whom described it as ‘unnervingly addictive’.

As often happens, there were many more worthy winners than there is space for. I especially liked Robert Schechter’s ‘Bratitude’: ‘the proud demeanour of a misbehaving child’, Aaron Asbury’s ‘flabulous’: ‘the state of being fashionably overweight’, and Mae Scanlan’s ‘omituary’, ‘a write-up of a person’s life, with all the unsavoury parts left out’. The winners get £20 each.

Hairdresser
a) chairdresser: n. an employee who does no effective work, but whose presence improves the appearance of the workplace. He or she may be deliberately employed for this purpose; in either case the term may be, but is not necessarily, an insult. Also adj. as in ‘it is just a chairdresser job’.
b) hairpresser: n. a passionate kiss or embrace given unexpectedly to someone expecting a formal salutation. Also n. one who frequently gives such a salutation.
c) airdresser: n.; a nudist.
Dominica Roberts

Characteristic
a) charmacteristic: a type of sexual magnetism exerted by certain male film stars in which wealth, worldly sophistication and the implicit promise of a good lay outweigh the never fully concealed insincerity. Cary Grant the epitome, George Clooney currently leading the field.  
b) chavacteristic: an affected style of performance by which elocuted actors attempt to suggest they are deranged working-class heavies by emulating the accents of e.g., Ray Winstone or Vinnie Jones.  Seen at its ripest in Ben Kingsley’s contribution to Sexy Beast. Cf. ‘mockney’.
c) characteristi: coined by Italian film reviewers to describe the problematic characters of Federico Fellini’s later work (whether they were ‘real’, figments, dream-symbols, etc.), now applied in derogation by Anglophile cinéastes to the puerile, computer-generated fantasy beings of the dominant Hollywood ‘family film’.
Basil Ransome-Davies

Parsnip
a) sparsnip: n. Boxing a slight cut suffered in training.
b) paysnip: n. a small reduction in wages, etc.
c) arsnip: n. Archaic a sharp pain in the buttocks.
Kitchen
a) kitschen: n. a kitchen equipped in a tawdrily pretentious manner.
b) aitchen: v. to anglicise French words by voicing the letter ‘h’: as in, Harfleur, haricot, hotel.
c) kithen: n. children of friends or acquaintances: by all means invite your kith and kin but not kithen.
W.J. Webster

Ministry
a) Milnistry: n. process of persuading otherwise sensible adults to read fictions about toy animals.
b) mimistry: n. demonstration or study of scientific apparatus and chemical reactions using simulations only, e.g., hand, eye, and other bodily suggestions, for health and safety reasons.
c) minitry: 1. n. a half-hearted attempt at carrying out instructions, or undertakings in the interest of the state. 2. n. a touchdown in Rugby Subbuteo™.
Bill Greenwell

Confusion
a) conefusion: the consternation of motorists, having endured several miles of slow-moving contra-flow traffic on a motorway, when there are no Men At Work in sight and it is obvious that nothing whatsoever in the way of resurfacing is being done.
b) sonfusion: the practice adopted by couples who have several boys and can’t afford a bigger house, of making them share cramped bedrooms, use bunk beds and pool all their toys, following the birth of a longed-for baby girl who will need a room of her own, painted pink.
c) confuion: (pronounced con-fwee-on) a recently added corruption, from the French fuir — to shun, and confire — to preserve, meaning: ‘the avoidance of or the refusal to eat any foodstuff that has been pickled i.e., onions, eggs, gherkins.
Jayne Osborn

Exist
a) rexist: a radical monarchist.
b) exism: Prejudice or discrimination against divorced persons.
c) xist: One who maps the location of pirate treasure.
Chris O’Carroll

Economist
a) echonomist: recycler of second-hand opinions on the economy.
b) iconomist: an enthusiast of the misuse of the term ‘icon’.
c) economit: an inexpensive glove.
Patrick Smith

Spinach
a) spinache: an overwhelming desire for spinach.
b) spinich: a rash caused by an allergic reaction to spinach.
c) spinch: a minuscule amount of spinach. e.g., ‘Can I get dessert if I eat a spinch?’
Marion Shore

No. 2640: Bizarre books
You are invited to provide the publicity blurb for one of the following implausibly titled but real books: I was Tortured by the Pygmy Love Queen; How to Write a How to Write Book, or Afterthoughts of a Wormhunter (150 words maximum). Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 24 March.