Chris Ambidge writes to tell me about an early Xmas present he got from a friend:
It’s a 20cm tall mannikin of The Queen: with usual hairdo, peach coloured dress & coat, sensible shoes, smile, white gloves, handbag & (of course) pearls. But wait — there’s much more. Her handbag is a solar cell, so put her someplace bright & it works — to cause her up-held hand to queen-wave.
Ah, the back-formed verb to queen-wave, based on the synthetic compound queen-waving ‘waving (one’s hand) like the Queen’. An entertaining survey of years of Queen-waving (from the Onion News Network) can be seen here.
December 11, 2009 at 4:50 pm |
That’s delightful, but you know, it’s a hard thing to find on the Web. Searches for “queen-waving” solar cell and many other possibilities just peter out. So how about a proper name to find these with — say, manufacturer or official name on the box; I know somebody who’d adore one for Xmas.
September 6, 2012 at 6:32 am |
[…] a political point, here’s my friend Chris Ambidge, appearing as the Queen (complete with the queen wave) at Toronto Pride this […]