The thingy

We had such a lovely day yesterday. My parents, my sister and her husband and an old family friend came to lunch and we had one of those warm, happy times that occurs when friends who go back a long way get together round a table. When pudding was cleared I went to make the coffee - and here I have to confess that it was instant. Very nice fair trade instant. I put the kettle on.

Then the thingy dropped off. You know, the thingy. With an electric kettle there's a switch to put down to make it boil, and it switches itself off when it's hot enough, yes? That thingy. It just fell off completely. Normally when something like that happens - 'when the doings drops oot' as we say in our family - we give to my Dad to fix. But this looked beyond hope. We heated the water in a saucepan and the kettle is awaiting its final journey. I bought a new one with a different sort of - you know - thingy.

This got me thinking. For somebody who works with words I talk a lot about the thingy, the doings, the whatnot, the thingummywhats, the doodah. (The remote control by the way, is the fedoofer). it's a lazy habit, I suppose, but some things don't seem to have a name. What's the word for the cover that goes over a keyhole? Or the fitting thing that holds a light to the wall? Or the bit on the top of a pen that you click up and down? Or that prickly feeling in your nose when you're about to sneeze? Do these things have names? Or do we have to make them up?

I think I'll call the thing on top of a pen 'the clicket'. Any more suggestions for names for unnamed objects are welcome. By the way, I love the Welsh word for a microwave. It's 'the poppety-ping'.

Excuse me. I need to write some thingies and put stamps on them so they can go in the doings tomorrow morning.