Word of the day

That's right, despite me actively managing your expectations around how infrequent these will be, we're back once again — not with the renegade master — with another word of the day.

You know how you remember those random little things sometimes? Like when you read or hear something utterly useless but it sticks to your brain like a limpet at low tide. I have that in spades.

Sadly, this doesn't apply to important stuff. In fact, the more important it is to remember, the more blurry my recall becomes. Like a printer running of ink.

Anyway, enough about that. "How's this relevant to word of the day?", you must be asking. Well, I read this particular word on the back of a chewing gum wrapper and the aforementioned phenomenon occurred. Despite being firmly lodged somewhere between my frontal lobe and pre-frontal cortex (don't check that, I've been watching a lot of House recently and made it up), I never thought I'd get an opportunity to use it. It's hardly the type of word one effortlessly drops into every day conversation.

Then one warm summer evening it happened. The pub quiz question to end all pub questions. A chance to drop some obscure knowledge on the rest of those dumb-dumbs and claim victory. An answer that surely I only I knew...

Today's word: Aglet

Noun:

1. A metal or plastic tube fixed tightly round each end of a shoelace. From the French word, "Aiguillette", meaning small needle.

That's right. The end of a shoelace has it's own name. Now you know.

And you also know that I know.

Frankly, I think knowing this useless bit of trivia is a bit sad.

But you know what's more sad?

Thinking you're the only one who knows the answer to "What do you call the piece of plastic at the end of a shoe lace?"

Fuck pub quizzes.