Sunday Rest: fauxfence.

 Fauxfence is a word we do rather need at the moment, but that doesn't stop it being a monstrosity.

It's obvious what it means (isn't it? It's a pretence of being offended) and the word does rhyme quite cleverly with offence. But that faux...Faux is horrible even when it's used to describe artificial flowers, or artificial animal horns or even (because we live in a strange, strange world) artificial concrete.

Faux manages, heaven help us, to be pretentious about fakery.

But still, fauxfence is a concept we really need at the moment.

Could we not use pretence-offence?

It's not nice, but it'd do.

Sunday Rest: fauxfence. Faux is French for false. It's been around in English in the phrases faux pas and faux-naif for ages, but faux used by itself is fairly recent. The word offence comes from the Old French offendre, to strike, from the Latin offendere, from ob- against and fendere to strike.