Word To Use Today: collywobbles.

Here's something to cheer us up in times of stress: collywobbles (the word, not the actual collywobbles).

Actually it might well be beyond the power of words to go as far as cheering us up all that much when we're suffering from collywobbles, but it must help a bit, anyway.

Collywobbles describe the feeling you get in an upset stomach, or sometimes the results of the looseness therein.

Such is the word's delight, however, that its use has been affectionately extended to cover those other feelings of abdominal unease such as might be caused by an incipient exam, the raising of the curtain to reveal a hungry audience, or the horrid anticipation of being found out.

However endearing the word may be, though, I hope that all the collywobbles you meet today are someone else's.

Word To Use Today: collywobbles. This word turned up in the 1800s. It probably started off as the Latin term for cholera, cholera morbus, but got a bit mixed up with colic and wobble on the way.