THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY.........................................

• Weak two: a particular period in every month you have arranged to play with one of your regular partners
• Switch : something you would like to activate to light up partner's brain
• Bullet : a small missile-shaped silvery object, on which to etch partner's name on before despatching it to him direct
• Cold : the feeling that comes over you when watching your clueless partner go down in a seemingly rigid contract
• Squeeze : an action you cannot stop yourself from taking when feeling cold ( see above ). This automaton-like action only occurs after first placing your hands around your partner's throat.
• Jump bid : direct request for bedtime frolics
• Reverse bid : the term first came to prominence in the early days of bridge, when bidding boxes were not around. Players, for instance, who held 4 or more clubs ( but lacking honours in the suit ) would open a reverse "club one". This told partner precisely how poor the suit was, as compared to the " one club " that promised so much more.
• Trump echo : a repeated bowel sound a defending player would need to generate, so as to pass onto partner a whiff about his precise holding in declarer's boss suit
• Elimination (play ) : another term that originated from the gangster days of Chicago bridge, when after kindly providing hopeless (ex-)partners with their own personalised concrete shoes, a fun drive out to a deep lake or river was the following up surprise