No, this is not a type of duck-abuse, it is the strangling of a person. It does have the ring of a duck's swansong though. England, 1600s.

For duck and goose abuse, gavage is the word. The force-feeding of  poultry to cause their livers to engorge with fat prior to slaughter is how pate foie gras is made. Don't touch that stuff- there is a special place in hell's farmyard for poultry torturers!

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Reading the entrails of sacrificial animals would likely make you a vegetarian.

From the Latin 'haruspex', the reader of entrails. Apparently the livers of sacrificial sheep and poultry are a good read. Liver reading is hepatomancy.

What is that, chopped liver?

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Ubiquitarianism is a belief in the omnipresence of Christ which arose from an arcane theological dispute about the Eucharist amongst early Lutherans.

The doctrine should probably be revived for 'family values' politicians. If Jesus is also present in Room 1313 of the Highway Motel, then maybe one ought not to go into it with that fancy lady or rent boy! It could also relieve Vice-President Pence of the USA of his anxiety about dining alone with women. After all, Jesus would always be there as chaperone.

Are the US 'What Would Jesus Do?' movement people ubiquitarians who receive direct instruction in their left ear, or are they just acting out and filling in until He actually arrives? In the splitting of such hairs, schism is born.

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Cynics may say that we already have rule by the worst.

From the Greek. I suppose at the moment they would point at Berlin to illustrate this word, and Berlin might point at Washington.

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All the other -isms may fade away, but resistentialism (rhymes with existentialism) endures for ever. The word was first used in print in 1948 in New York by one Paul Jennings, and refers to the doctrine that inanimate objects are at constant war against us. Usually described as humorous, for us believers it is no laughing matter!

It is true that Jennings was a humorist, but Einstein played the violin as well you know. In fact I think Jennings was the last great philosopher. Immanuel Kant said that we cannot the thing-in-itself. Resistentialism understands that the main problem is that the damned thing-in-itself certainly does not want to know us!

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In olden days of constant strife between clans and with the English, in some parts of Scotland all able men needed to be armed. To check on readiness, a wappenshaw was held periodically. All local men would appear there with their weapons to show that they were properly armed.

Germany speakers will have already sniffed the German words 'Waffen' (weapons) and 'Schau' (display) in there. Both the Scots and German words are derived from the Old Norse 'vapn' (weapons) and 'schaw' (display).

Those brave-hearted Scots were thus ready for the Sassenach (Scots or Irish term for the English, derived from the Gaelic term for the Latin 'saxones') at any time!

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We have all met a panjandrum somewhere in our lives. Somebody with some, usually small, official authority who views him or herself as Napoleon marching East.

English has plenty of mocking words for Grand Poobahs of all kinds. "Panjandrum' was made up by Samuel Foote in 1755 for a comic poem where it meant pretty-well nothing or anything.

Later it came in handy to describe the kind of person who loves spouting long, pompous words like 'panjandrum'. Only in English could a word originally meaning nothing later acquire its own grand mantle of meaning. Who says there is no class mobility amongst the English?

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