lawng ey-ker | /ˈlόŋ ˈeɪkər/
For Londoners, Long Acre has two potential meanings. In the city’s centre, it’s a well-known thoroughfare running through Covent Garden, and in the East End, it’s Cockney rhyming slang for baker. For farmers, it also has two potential meanings dependent on where you are. In Australia, the long acre (or the long paddock) is the colloquial name for lengthy stock routes authorised for droving sheep and cattle to market. In Ireland, the UK and New Zealand, it’s more specifically a strip of roadside verge that’s been temporarily fenced off to graze stock – although here too its roots may stem from bygone droves to distant markets.
Street traders originally used Cockney rhyming slang as a secretive language, designed to be impenetrable to the authorities. Whilst farmer’s intentions may be less nefarious, many rural communities have a rich lexicon that would nevertheless leave the uninitiated thoroughly confused.
A flerd is a combined flock and herd as in the grazing of sheep and cattle together in the same paddock. Flerding is good for the pasture as the sheep and cattle tend to target different forage. It’s good for the animals too, helping reduce the spread of species-specific parasites, and the presence of the cattle tends to make the sheep feel safer.
If something is horsefeathers, it’s bullshit, nonsense, unreal – as rare as hen’s teeth and as genuine as crocodile’s tears.
If it’s raining exceptionally hard, it’s toad stranglers out there – it may also be a real turd-floater, a goose drownder, or even a fish drownder.
If you’re looking to buy a race-winning horse, stay away from hinnies – the hybrid offspring of a stallion (male horse) and a jenny (female donkey).
Introduction Aeolian Alpenglow
Benthos Crepuscular Crispate Crown shyness
Desire lines Dreich Endragoned Edgelands
Frondescence Fumarole Gluggaveður Gossamer
Karst Komorebi Lawrence Long acre
Machair Monkey’s wedding Moonglade
Psithurism Quartz Rakuyou Roaring forties
Snag Soft estate Specular, diffuse and pellucid
Spoondrift Steam fog Swash zone Sylvan