New dictionary spells out how to be inventive with words

And unappreciated workers who might have expected the sack will now merely become victims of "personnel ceiling reductions".

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Then again they could always "cut the pigtail" - or quit before they are fired.

These are some of the new entries in How Not To Say What You Mean - A Dictionary of Euphemisms, whose latest edition is out today priced £9.99.

Twenty years on from its first publication, more traditional terms such as "pushing up the daisies" have been joined by far more modern phrases.

These include "New Labour", defined as "a non-socialist political party", and "wardrobe malfunction" - inspired by Janet Jackson flashing her bejewelled breast at the 2004 Super Bowl when part of her costume "accidentally" came off.

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Author Robert Holder has scoured newspapers and books for euphemisms for 30 years and has collected 11,000 in that time.

Around a quarter appear in the book. He said: "Euphemisms are a very important branch of language because they are the way it develops.

"Take orphan-hugging, for example. That started off with bunny-hugging, which was connected to animal rights, was followed by tree-huggers, who were ecologists, and now we have got people like David Cameron and American politicians who dash off to Africa with lots of cameramen in tow."

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Mr Holder, who last updated the dictionary five years ago, says this time he has included many more terms to do with housing.

"People who really have to be inventive with their terminology are estate agents and this is very much evident in the additions to this edition - they use very odd phrases."

These terms include "scope for modernisation" when "derelict" might be more appropriate, while a wild wasteland of a garden is likely to be described as "undisciplined".

While extra-marital affairs used to be a bit on the side, now the culprits are engaged in "corridor creeping" and are not lovers but "emotionally close".