> One of these was the brainchild of Adams’s English teacher at school: define the place-name. So, ‘what is epping?’ and ‘what are devizes?’

I don’t understand a word of this.

Epping and Devizes are both towns in the UK. The idea is to take an interesting sounding proper name, pretend it's just a normal word and then come up with your own definition.

Leading to one of Adams' least-known books, "The Meaning of Liff" (1983)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meaning_of_Liff

I borrowed someone's copy of that once back in said 1980's. I remember there was a word for the cooler side of the pillow when you turned it over, but can't remember what it is - but I think it started with 'a'....seached the internet for it 'abilene', not to be confused with Abeline in Texas of course.

There seemed to be a lot of words related to knights having to deal with the different reasons/states of drawbridges not opening to let them in as well.

Now I have an irrational desire for Bryan Ferry to write a song similar to Avalon, but called Abilene all about how nice the cooler side of the pillow is.

Duddo (n.) The most deformed potato in any given collection of potatoes.

I use that word to this day.

I think skoonspruit (forgot the spelling) is the main one that still stuck in casual use decades later for my family.

It's the rare fountain thing a saliva gland makes eg when yawning.

There was another one for a group of cars all doing exactly the speed limit because one of them is a police car. I was better at remembering the definitions than the actual words.

You forgot the last one because of how improbable it is for a police car to drive at the speed limit..

> the rare fountain thing a saliva gland makes eg when yawning

When I was growing up everyone called that a "gleek". Though usually it only came up when people did it intentionally.

"in the beginning of the Monty Python film, the gravestone with the title "The Meaning of Liff" appears before a lightning bolt strikes the last F and converts it to an E."

I remember wondering 'what was that all about?'

The book puts names to things that are otherwise nameless, and draws those names from places in the UK. One that sticks in my mind is a "sheppey", the distance at which a sheep stops being picturesque. It has the narrative structure of a dictionary, but the ideas...

My favorite Douglas Adams quote:

I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as you go past them