Words Fail Me

Monachino’s Words Fail Me column features gems like ‘the word superstitious has 13 letters’ and ‘Lite: light, but with 20% fewer letters’.

The regular fortnightly slot follows Monachino’s Words Fail Me book, developed with Alan Fletcher, which was published in 2006.

Monachino says, ‘It should be plain to see how the ideas translate so well from a book format to a small box in a magazine, keeping the symbol, the empty speech bubble, consistent between the two.

‘I noticed when I dropped round the Private Eye office recently that the art director, Tony Rushton, prints them out and writes the number of the edition they’re going to appear in inside the speech bubble, I found that a really charming use for the empty bubble.’