According to the Global Language Monitor (whatever in the world that is) the English language is on the cusp of a glorious landmark. For there are at present 995,844 official words in this lush and Lucullan language of ours, with the millionth expected to be coined on April 29, 2009.

French, meanwhile, is stuck on 43. But that's not our problem (and we've never been ones to boast of our size in front of the French).

Our problem is the sheer profligacy of our coinage. It is all very well hanging on to words such as “egg”, “bottom” and “Smurf”, which are used all the time (although “Smurf” not as often as it used to be), but what of “olation”, “rattinet” and “splore”?

Fallen into abeyance, they have. Gone rusty. If it were not for me, words such as “flabel”, “protreptic” and “yonnie” might have seen out the century without once being written in The Times. To say nothing of “zarcole” and “phane”.

In some ways I think it would be sounder to remove some of these lesser-used words from the lexicon to make room for the new, rather than to treasure bulk and volume in this crass modern way of ours.

But things are as they are, and word-killing is frowned upon. So what then, I wonder, will be the millionth word? Who will coin it on that frabjous day in spring next year? And will he get a lifetime supply of groceries?

The aforementioned “present rate” is one that I have just worked out. It seems to predict 4,156 new coinages in ten months, which is about 416 a month, or roughly 100 a week. I have been wondering what the 100 new words coined this week are likely to have been. Unfortunately space allows for only 22 of them. Many, you will notice, are merely new meanings for old words, which I am assuming will count. I haven't actually phoned the Global Language Monitor to ask (I'm a bit scared of him, to be honest).

nadal n. 1) A lopsided structure, specifically one whose left side is more developed than its right.

2) A grunting thing.

house n. A thing of no value.

knife n. Children's fashion accessory.

mosley n/v. The act of receiving sexual gratification by beating a woman with a stick while speaking German. (“Do you fancy a bit of slap and mosley”; “I took her home and mosleyed the bejesus out of her.”)

onlythemselvestoblame n. What poor people have, according to David Cameron.

KP (pron 'Kay-pee) n. Big, daft, utterly vulgar foreign thing with capacity to make Englishmen happy in summer.

easyPocrisy n. The phenomenon by which, after two or three years of being implored to stop travelling abroad so much because of the deleterious effect on the environment, 58 per cent of people suddenly cancel their foreign holidays because the credit crunch, the rise in living costs and the strength of the euro have made it seem a bit of an extravagance.

Amazing - people will not forgo their two weeks of ouzo-bingeing and sunburn for the reciprocal benefit of merely preserving life on Earth, but as soon as they think it will cost money that might otherwise be spent on newly expensive crisps, Coke and other poisonous supermarket trash, they downscale to Bridlington.

skroik! int. The sound of an African bishop slapping his forehead as he is told that henceforth he will have to ordain three girls and a whoopsie every day before breakfast.

plank n. An object with which Tory policy is teeming. Most of them are “central planks”. How a long bit of splintery wood became Conservative Central Office wonkspeak for “idea” is anyone's guess. (It may have something to do with this “raft” of policies that they're always talking about).

wonkspeak n. Language spoken by gap-toothed flunkies at Central Office (also by slack-jawed gophers at Labour headquarters, and grovelling toadies at whichever cardboard box the Liberal Democrats operate from these days).

share n. A thing that can go down as well as down.

food n. Luxury item.

impossibo adj. Something that cannot be done, the new spelling designed to facilitate rhyming in pop songs such as Will.I.Am's current hit Heartbreaker:

“I got some things I gotta let her know/ To fix the love now it's impossibo / But baby, baby if we take it slow...”

G8 n. An eight-course meal eaten while talking in a heartfelt manner about poor people.

Gordo n. A big, fat, scary bogeyman with one eye and wonky, sticky-out lip, who will come and eat you up if you don't finish what's on your plate.

MySpace n. A website on which someone called Giles Coren appears to have a page containing all sorts of personal information, except that it isn't really me.

And when I tried to complain to the people who run it they said that they couldn't do anything about it unless I e-mailed them a photograph of myself holding a bit of paper with my name on it.

So that despite the fact that I am 38 years old and have no truck at all with these saddo social network sites I am supposed to buy into their puerile modus operandi just to avoid being impersonated and humiliated.

rightandwrong n. A previously quite complicated thing that will now be made very simple by David Cameron.

pentagony n. 1) Pain and bruising caused when dealt a large blow by perfidious American military going back on its word.

2) A form of “depression”, in the economic sense, when 11,000 jobs are lost in Bristol and North Wales

nigger n. A thing often found in woodpiles that is not meant to be racist at all, it's just one of those things that you say if you are a 73-year-old Tory lord who isn't a huge fan of immigration.

It's only the same as a “fly in the ointment”, a “snake in the grass”, or a “spanner in the works”. And you don't hear flies, snakes and spanners complaining. Honestly, it's political correctness gone mad.

(Not to be confused with a nigga - which is an empowered black man, often working in the rapular music industry, who says say things like: “Dat is da Conservative Peer in da woodpile, you hear what I'm saying, blood?”)

emmaness n., archaic. Endangered form of enterprise - once quite successful - involving the sale of large pleated, A-line dresses, elasticated trousers and cold, wet sandwiches in plastic boxes.

twennytwelve n. A giant and terrible thing that is going to fall on the East End of London and very possibly kill it for ever.

winehouse n. A triple punch combination, also used by skinny Jewish birds as a salutation to fellow drinkers down the pub.

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