Funny. Wish I could commit some of these words to memory to use in normal conversation.

I am easily amused, not really - my name isn't easily amused...anyway, great read.

I've been reading and loving Douglas Adams's works since I was in middle school; while it's possible to translate this as my sense of humor not evolving much in 15 years, I'd rather embrace the notion that I was saddled with a funny bone (among other things) that would have served me much better had I been born on the other side of the Atlantic. Either way, the real point is that diving into anything penned by one of my all-time favorite writers always feels a little bit like coming home or slipping into a pair of lovingly wrecked Chucks. Especially since I've had a hankering for something delightfully British and wryly executed ever since rewatching the 2005 "Hitchhiker's Guide" movie, which was really the only bright spot during my recent run-in with the modern plague.

This goofy little book starts out with the only instances of me both being positively tickled by a phonetic guide and finding an alphabetical sequence of maps to be decidedly hilarious (my usual inability to accept skewed images of familiar land masses -- like an upside map projection, which just freaks me out -- was deftly avoided by the masterminds' execution). I wasn't really sure what the point was until I deigned to read the book jacket and discovered that the whole premise of the book is reimagining funny-sounding place names (the easy target of Gobbler's Knob is woefully absent but Wetwang picks up that slack) as simpler ways of naming those hard-to-summarize nouns, verbs and social gaffes that no one wants to acknowledge as common experiences or ever thought to wrap up in easy-to-express packaging for mass usage.

The breakdown of these definitions is equal parts polite renaming of slightly less polite realities (Moisie: the condition of one's face after performing cunnilingus), identifying those small annoyances that comprise a lousy day when you've encountered just the right frequency and combination of them (Salween: a faint taste of dishwashing liquid in a cup of tea; Fladderbister: the part of a raincoat that trails out of a car after you've closed the door on it), recognizing those awkward inevitabilities that come with maintaining the illusion of ours being a civilized society (Shifnal: an awkward shuffling walk caused by two or more people in a hurry accidentally getting into the same segment of a revolving door) and addressing those annoying habits that result in an individual's repulsion being universally agreed upon (Dinsdale: one who always plays "Chopsticks" on the piano), with some uncategorized silliness thrown in for variety.

A celebration of humanity's finer points, it's not (because where's the humor in THAT?). But it is an entertaining and quick little read that offers the unexpected bonus of a warm, tingly assurance that someone, somewhere, appreciates the need for words to describe all the things that one wonders if anyone else has ever experienced. Like that three-week-old unidentifiable lump in the fridge or the feeling one gets when cornered by the least agreeable person at a party, only to have a moment of ecstatic relief to realize that that person isn't you.

Smart and hilarious.

I will admit it, if anyone else had written an entire book of definitions that they then attached to the strange names of towns, and cities, there is no way I would have read it, but this, this is written by Douglas Adams, possibly my favorite writer ever. The definitions he invents are so perfect it made me wonder why we don't actually have a word for most of them. It was a fun book to read, and it made me sad to know that he was no longer with us.

This is a second book in the "Meaning of Liff.." series. It is basically a humorous dictionary of imaginary and twisted words which on closer examination strike a cord with our everyday world. You can like many of these types of books read the entries from A to Z in order - but its hard going - however it is more fun to simply flick through the book picking out entries and reading their descriptions. The only problem now is once read you are just dying to try some of them out (or is that just me?)

Not so much a story as a dictionary of made up words. The people that created the game Balderdash ripped off this book. I’ve always been good at Balderdash, but Douglas Adams would have been the undisputed master.

It's a good translation of Douglas Adams' original "the deeper meaning of Liff" into German, using mostly German cities. It's not a direct translation, but includes words that aren't featured in the original, which makes it good to read in addition to the original.
The book itself is built like a Longman's dictionary and includes both the German and the original English version of the book.

This also includes all of the entries from the earlier “Meaning of Liff” plus some new and modified entries. Unless you’re a massive fan of Douglas Adams and John Lloyd - I am - just stick to this edition and save about one centimetre of space on your bookshelves

This is a fun read. It's a dictionary of randomness. Pure Adams genius.

Wilmot:
A book that went brought home is the same as one you have already purchased but has changed due to: correct cultural sensitivities; changing society or to help Americans understand. Examples include Agatha Christie's 'And Then There Were None' and J. K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'.

Wilno:
1. The feeling that the book that you brought home might be a wilmot but turns out to be an edition that expands on a previous one. Most often these books are cookbooks or dictionaries of a sort.
2. The actual difference content of a wilno.

I’m surprised that I didn’t love Douglas Adams’ THE DEEPER MEANING OF LIFF: A Dictionary of Things That There Aren’t Any Words For Yet. I certainly adored his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.

Ely (n.) The first, tiniest inkling that something, somewhere, has gone terribly wrong.

It seems that this book was really aimed at adolescent boys who find bodily functions amusing. There were many definitions that I laughed at but it was disheartening to find that there were outdated references and all the silly juvenile witticisms.

Wembly (n.) The hideous moment of confirmation that the disaster presaged in the ely (q.v.) has actually struck.

What Adams did, along with John Lloyd, was to take actual place names from around the world and give them phony definitions of ostensibly amusing quality.

Godalming (n.) Wonderful rush of relief on discovering that the ely (q.v.) and the wembly (q.v.) were in fact false alarms.

It took me years to find a copy of this book and I’m glad I did track it down, I’m just a little bit disappointed. There were plenty of giggles but this wouldn’t be a book I’d choose to take with me to a deserted island. It’s not a keeper.