DINNER PARTY INTEL: Liquor’s latest lexicon

1. School fleece

Martin Oosthuizen High School in the Northern Cape town of Kakamas is living out a nursery rhyme. It has adopted an orphaned dorper lamb that has been officially enrolled as a pupil in grade 8. The newcomer is fed by a local co-op and fawned over by pupils, teachers and even the principal.

2. Hunt canned

While one school took a sheep into its care, another sought to cull a lion. Futurum Academy in Jan Kempdorp, also in the Northern Cape, planned to offer a canned lion hunt as one of its prizes in a fundraising evening this week. The hunt was part of an auction and the prey a lioness that had been roaming a farm in the area. But an outcry led to the idea being canned.

3. Tipple tattle

Linguists have discovered that in English any noun can be transformed into a synonym for intoxication, or “drunkonym”, by adding the “-ed” suffix. Prof Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer, of Chemitz University of Technology in Germany, provided examples such as “trolleyed”, “hammered”, “wellied” and ­“steampigged”. She put it down to Britain’s drinking habits and “absurdist sense of humour”.