A reminder today of the 19th century word 'arsle': to go backwards on a task or mission rather than forward, to the point where you wonder why you started it in the first place (I arsle, you arsle, we are ars(e)ling, etc.).

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but you can never have enough of ‘snudging’, a word from the 1600s for ‘remaining snug and quiet; nestling’.

Word of the morning so far: snudge, a 17th century verb for 'remaining quiet and snug', i.e. nestling with little prospect of moving anywhere.

My word of the day is ‘quockerwodger’: a 19th century wooden toy puppet whose limbs jerk about at the whim of the puppet master. It soon became used for a politician whose strings are pulled entirely by someone else.