Calling all plonkers and wallies...your dictionary needs you

If the answer to this question is yes - and you can prove it - then the Oxford English Dictionary(OED) wants to hear from you.

The organisation is teaming up with the BBC to trace the history of forty well-known words and phrases.

As well as plonkers the OED is also looking for anyone called a prat before 1968 and also if they know where the word came from. Anyone who recalls being branded a wally before 1969 should also pick up the phone.

Added to these the organisers are keen to trace the origin of the phrase shaggy dog story and hear whether it was used before 1946. Did anyone use the dog and bone before 1961.

And if you were donning a shell-suit before before 1989 or flip flops before 1970 then you could also do you bit for the English language.

All the forty words listed for the project already have a date next to them - but they want to find out if anyone has evidence of these words being used before then.

The results of the Wordhunt will featrure in BBC2 series Balderdash and Piffle, presented by Victoria Coren, which returns in spring.

This year they are appealing for words relating to dogs, fashion and dodgy dealings as well as some euphemisms and insults.

The OED looks to find the earliest verifiable usage of very single word in the Englsh language - which currently numbers about 60,000, as well as every seperate meaning of the word.

They are also asking for help with a set of words and phrases of which they do not know how they came into being .

OED chief editor John Simpson said: "Wordhunters made some remarkable discoveries in the last series. They found Wordhunt words tucked away in football fanzines, LPs, school newspapers: just the sort of sources we can't easily get our hands on when we are researching words.

"Our first public appeal went out in 1859 and we have been busy collecting information ever since.