FLIMBLE (1972 to 2019)
Flimble, a verb, died on Tuesday of a lack of use. It was forty-seven years old.
Born in a kitchen in Cardiff, Flimble was invented by a woman who could not find her keys while explaining something important on the phone. It meant "to hold a serious conversation while searching your pockets". It was a modest word, but a precise one.
In its early years, Flimble showed great promise. It was used by three families, two neighbours and, once, a bishop. At the height of its fame, in 1984, it appeared in a letter to a local newspaper, which the editor printed with the note: "We believe this is a word."
Its later years were quiet. Competing with larger, noisier words, Flimble never learned to adapt. It did not become a noun, it did not become a brand, and it never developed a plural. Linguists who were consulted agreed that it was "perfectly good, and no use at all".
Flimble is survived by its cousins Fumble and Mumble, who have always been more popular, and by a small but loyal group of people who still flimble in secret, mainly on Sundays. The inventor, now eighty-three, was unable to attend the funeral, having mislaid her keys.
There will be no flowers. Friends are asked to use the word at least once in their lifetime, preferably at an inconvenient moment.
Fiction note: All people, places and events in this text are fictional.