Weeding is never an end in itself. The good gardener gets rid of ugly sproutings to encourage healthy growth. And whether through the pruning of roses or the pollarding (now there's a word!) of trees, nature needs hacking back from time to time if it is to develop fruitfully.

The same applies to language. A couple of weeks ago I identified some of the uglier growths blighting contemporary English. From “sourcing”, which is the ragwort of journalism, a toxic interloper that should be uprooted wherever its found, to “going forward”, the Japanese bindweed of business discourse, I drew up a little list of buzzwords that never would be missed. But clearing the language of these excrescences, while a pleasure in itself, is, like weeding, not an end in itself. It's a work of linguistic hygiene that clears the ground for the new words we need.

For our language does need some new blooms. Not so much to describe the new phenomena that technology generates, from blogs to nano-bots, but to describe the new dilemmas and pressures of modern life. Such as the dread that takes hold when someone starts talking about nano-bots and you haven't the foggiest idea how to respond. Having tried, in my own small way, to clear a tiny patch of the language from contamination, I now offer, in tentative fashion, a few verbal seedlings. They may never take root outside this tiny times2 allotment. But I hope that some readers find the following suggestions for new words a useful Coren (n) an amusing diversion that takes the vicissitudes of modern life as its raw material.

Cowdenbeath (n) a ghoulishly inappropriate juxtaposition of facial expressions, involving, for example, an individual exhibiting a toothy grin, staring eyes and furrowed brow simultaneously. Often suggestive of deep inner turmoil and an inability to decide on fundamentals: “The Prime Minister spoke of his vision but the Cowdenbeath under his tousled fringe told a different story”.

Chipping Norton (n) the fear that hits you, as you're heading off to the airport for a relaxing fortnight in Acapulco, that you might have left the cooker on.

Chipping Sodbury (n) the nervousness that then afflicts you as you agonise over whether to share your fears with your wife or shrug them off because you're already running late for the plane and the traffic on the M4 is horrendous.

Chipping Camden (n) the vision that hits you just as you pass the Heston services of your home as a smoking ruin and the reproachful glance that your wife will shoot you because it was you who wanted a last bacon sandwich before setting off.

Chipping Ongar (n) the brief period of time between passing the Heston services and reaching the turn-off for Heathrow when you could still go back - even at the risk of missing the plane - if you were determined to check on the gas. Can also describe any point in life when you can still turn back before it's too late, even though the cost may be horrendous, as in: “She was almost at the door of the church when she realised that she had reached a real Chipping Ongar and couldn't go on. I suppose I should have been able to tell from her Cowdenbeath that morning that her heart wasn't in it”.

Chorlton-cum-Hardy (n) the noise that your wife makes when you turn the car around on the M4 roundabout, head home - refusing to say why - driving at top speed, rush in to the kitchen, check on the gas, discover that all's well and then realise that you've missed the flight, and thus the connection, for the first proper holiday that she's had in five years.

Ghent (n) what someone in the grip of a Chorlton-cum-Hardy will call her partner.

Bruges (n) what you find on your shins after a Chorlton-cum-Hardy subsides.

Antwerp (n) a salesman in a mobile phone shop.

Flanders (vb) to go into a self-imposed mental daydream during which one reflects on the nature of Purgatory until the mobile phone salesman or PC World shop assistant stops talking, as in: “Michael just Flanders for as long as necessary and then simply asks if he can have the cheapest one”.

Leighton (vb) to modernise a service to the point where it no longer bears any resemblance to the original, as in: “Two postal deliveries a day was clearly wasteful. And getting the post in the morning before one left home was just a distraction. But now that the Royal Mail has been Leightoned, I can enjoy the convenience of just one delivery at a convenient point in the afternoon”; or “They must have got someone in to Leighton the railways. Instead of those smelly old cooked breakfasts, we've now got a nicely microwaved bacon roll. The meat's so much more moist than before”; or “I'm so glad that my bank has been Leightoned. Now every time I call to check on my account, it takes the trouble to offer me a new credit card, loan or remortgaging offer. And it has got rid of that tedious chap, the manager or whoever he was, who nosed around in my account and wanted to make it his business to understand my affairs. How much more streamlined things are now”.

Hoon (vb) to give a speech in which a brave attempt is made to deliver banal truisms as though they were matters of daring controversy, as in: “‘I make no excuse for telling you now that Our Queen does a wonderful job. And let the word go out from this conference hall that we know how hard hard-working families work and how tired they must be come Friday teatime. And therefore let us pledge ourselves and our generation to the work of our times, the challenge of our age, we will leave no puppy behind in the global rat race', he Hooned.”

Moments of pride - and prejudice

Thanks for your suggestions on Britain's proudest moments. The most popular so far have been our standing alone against fascism in 1940 and the abolition of the slave trade. All other suggestions will still be gratefully received. The promise of a volume of Macaulay for the best suggestion is still there. And I'll throw in a copy of Michael Burleigh's wonderful new history of terrorism, Blood and Rage, for the most original and off-piste suggestion. The worst idea will earn one unlucky reader a volume of Hobsbawm. Which reminds me of another word - Harman (v): to offer a eulogy to a Marxist autocrat in defiance of all logic because adolescent anti-Americanism has warped one's judgment, as in, “She Harmaned so much on Start the Week that she was in danger of Hobsbawming out of control”.

Totally eclipsed

Still talking of words, how about Swintoned (after Tilda), meaning to be overshadowed by one's more talented partner? Tilda Swinton's swain is the painter and writer John Byrne, the genius behind The Slab Boys and Tutti Frutti. Nonetheless, his brilliance has now now been firmly eclipsed by his Oscar-winning missus.

Now I am to Byrne as Buckfast Tonic Wine is to Nuits St Georges. But in my own way I've been Swintoned. I've been writing for several years in The Times and some of what I've written has inspired controversy, some a murmur of approval. But nothing I've written has won me as much interest as a piece my wife wrote recently about my fondness for pyjamas. Day after day, colleagues have confessed their own nightwear secrets to me. I've been inundated with e-mails asking me for PJ advice. I've had 20 media bids inviting me to appear on programmes to discuss how to dress decorously in bed. And all because Mrs G managed to find out the one thing which was really interesting about me, and put it in prose at once crisper, more informative and funnier than anything I could manage.