Where might you observe both form policing and labour pains? What’s the difference at a casino between a flea, a vulture and a fish? Who talks about plate spinning, monkey branching and hard nexting? Why would a devotee of competitive eating (otherwise known as a gurgitator) exploit a manual typewriter yet shun the Roman method? Should you worry if a sommelier tells a colleague you are a whale and ready to drop the hammer? If a doctor identifies you as a Honda, is that praise or disapproval; and how should you feel when prescribed a therapeutic wait?

This handsomely produced volume, a field guide to the esoteric languages of different professions and tribes, provides answers to all these questions and many more. Its author Ben Schott revels in collecting and explaining the argot of cab drivers, booksellers, stunt performers and dog walkers. It’s more than 20 years since he made his name with Schott’s Original Miscellany, which bulged inside countless Christmas stockings and attracted clowders of copycats. He retains his appetite for curious information (about, say, editing techniques for reality TV shows, or the £6 that Vic Flick was paid for contributing the guitar riff to the James Bond theme) and for conveying it in quirkily amusing terms.

If a doctor identifies you as a Honda, is that praise or........

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