I really was the nerd in the car that read vocabulary books. If we were going on day trips, I would quite like to have just stayed in the car with my German and French vocab books. It's embarrassing to admit to it now.
— Susie Dent
The battle between server and servee is as ancient as it is well disguised, and it follows, therefore, that waiters have developed a private lingo that allows them to mock, complain, or simply entertain themselves.
There is an art to eavesdropping, but I think to some extent we are all guilty of picking up those little odds and ends that can be quite intriguing if you analyse them.
When eyeliner was introduced in the Twenties by Max Factor, a pioneer of Hollywood film cosmetics who began selling to the public, even the word 'makeup' was a revelation.
English has always been a mongrel tongue, snapping up words from every continent its speakers encountered.
Bizarrely, our English word 'sturdy' may go back to the Latin turdus, thrush. Anyone described as 'sturdy' in the 1200s was wilfully reckless and possibly as immovable as a sozzled bird.
What I've discovered is that from football fans to undertakers, secret agents to marble-players and politicians, we all are part of at least one tribe. By tribes, I'm talking anthropologically; these groups are determined less by genes and more by the work they do or the passions they pursue.
German has always felt the language that I come back to. It's given a very hard time by most people for being ugly and guttural. In fact, it's one of the most melodic, lyrical languages around. And German literature is amazing. It's just a treasury for me.
I was fascinated by the shape of words even before I knew what they meant.
From the start, English has happily absorbed words from every tongue it's encountered.
Can I get a mochaccino?': a statement that, for many, is worse than any number of nails down a blackboard. Not on account of the coffee - most of us drink Ventis aplenty these days - rather it's the 'can I get?' - three words that regularly top the list of British bugbears.
I don't intentionally eavesdrop. I'm not looking for salacious gossip, I'm just looking for vocabulary items.
We are surrounded by hundreds of 'tribes,' each speaking their own distinct slanguage of colourful words, jokes and phrases that together form an idiosyncratic phrasebook, years in the making.
In the earliest days, make-up and moralising were intertwined. The 'cosmetic slops and washes' of the 17th and 18th centuries aimed to smooth complexions and revive a woman's 'bloom' - but their critics were never far behind.
Glogg is a Scandinavian mulled wine, sweetened with honey, almonds, raisins and spices. Its name suits its purpose so beautifully.
In the middle of the 20th century, aspirations to sound 'proper' were passionately pursued. Dictionaries as late as the Seventies include many pronunciations that could cut the proverbial glass.
Booze' was once a popular term in the slang or 'cant' of the criminal underworld, which may explain its rebellious overtones today.
According to my parents, I've always liked to tune into the conversations of others. But rather than hope for a snippet of salacious gossip, it has always been the words themselves that I wanted to understand.
The one thing - apart from assumptions about German - that I have to challenge frequently is people assuming that lexicographers are fierce protectors of the language when in fact our job is not to put a lid on it.
Above all, Jane Goodall continues to teach us that, as humans, we are no more entitled to our glorious planet than the chimps she so lovingly protects.
I love American English, not least because a lot of it was ours to begin with. Indeed, many Americanisms can be found in the works of William Shakespeare.
The best time to catch tribal jargon is when it's not looking.
I've been obsessed with words since I was a little girl, and I am fortunate that each week as resident word expert on 'Countdown' I am ideally placed to quiz my guests in dictionary corner about the words and phrases they use.
In the 1900s, bleaching lotions and skin-lighteners were a female imperative no matter what her colour, often carrying suggestive names like 'Fair-Plex Ointment' and 'Black-No-More.' The tiniest touch of rouge was allowed, but only if applied with great subtlety.
Probably my favourite winter-word of all. Apricity is the warmth of the sun on a chilly day.
The notion of 'Queen's English' is usually applied to our pronunciation.
The earliest dictionaries were collections of criminal slang, swapped amongst ne'er-do-wells as a means of evading the authorities or indeed any outsider who might threaten the trade.
The word 'eavesdropper' originally referred to people who, under the pretence of taking in some fresh air, would stand under the 'eavesdrip' of their house - from which the collected raindrops would fall - in the hopes of catching any juicy tid-bits of information that might come their way from their neighbour's property.
I'm not a brazen extrovert, but I'm not as blushing or demure as people might think.
The enduring image I will keep of Jane Goodall is of her emotional goodbye to a chimp she had rescued and nurtured, on the day of the animal's release.
In all my years in 'Countdown's' Dictionary Corner, the subject most guaranteed to rankle with our viewers is the presence of Americanisms in the dictionary.
