The main cliches of doglore are well represented. There is a singing dog; a nervous postie (some of the blokes who do this route call it death row); a disgusted terrace-house dweller weary of the sight and odour of dog crap on her nature strip […]

I propose to call the quality here portrayed sphexishness, and its opposite antisphexishness (a vexish word to pronounce!), and then I propose that consciousness is simply the possession of antisphexishness to the highest possible degree. The point is that sphexishness and antisphexishness are two extremes along a continuum.

The highest level of good English has been called the acrolect; the lowest level of poor speech, the basilect; both are contrasted with the matrilect, the general native language.

Santa Claus' sleigh is supposedly pulled by eight reindeer