Well driven? Only phone if the driver is all over the road

TODAY WE bring you another instalment in our ongoing glossary of the Nineties, listing words and phrases that have acquired new meanings in this glittering decade.

Access: Once this was a noun meaning entry. Then it became the name of a credit card. Now it is a verb meaning "to go in", as "source" has become a verb meaning "to get out". So nowadays instead of saying: "I think I'll go into the cellar and get out a bottle of wine," you say "I think I'll access the cellar and source some wine."

Arts: New word for "skills". We tend to talk less about "circus skills", more about "circus arts".

Centre: A centre is a place on the outskirts of a town or in the middle of nowhere, usually devoted to leisure, health or arts.

CEO (chief executive officer): A man in charge of a company who is so insecure that he has to have three words in his title, all meaning roughly the same thing. Conference centre: A hotel that's found a use for a neglected ballroom or dining-hall - at last.

Convenience food: A kind of pre-cooked food suitable for throwing into the nearest convenience.

Core values: a meaningless phrase that is often found in "mission statements" (qv).

Creative: Name given to the department of a company where the truth is taken and bent until it fits company policy.

Culture: Name given to conversation in the canteen, as in "the culture of football is basically laddish" or "the police force is governed by a culture of cheating". "Culture" used to refer to acquired wisdom, and now means the opposite.

Cf philosophy, which used to mean the search for truth, and now means a footballing strategy, as in: "My philosophy has always been to score goals, entertain and get a knighthood."

Digital: Adjective of "foxglove".

Discount: A financial privilege offered by manufacturers to supermarkets, who don't need it, but not to small shops, who do. Dumbing down: Believing that Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? represents a high point in the evolution of television.

Elitism: Not owning a TV set.

To engage with: Not to be disgusted by.

Face-painting: Only new folk art of the 20th century. If face-painting takes place in the vicinity of a bouncy castle, it is then called a school fayre.

Fayre: Word used by people who would normally call it a "fete", but can't remember where the accent goes on "fete".

Feng shui: Ancient Chinese art of locating the wallet of the gullible and removing money.

Flawed: Word used by book reviewers either of a bad book by someone they like, or a good book by someone they hate.

Jurassic: Meaning, as old as the rocks in Colorado's Jura mountains. It is never used in this sense. In fact, it is never used in any sense. It is just used.

Le: A French word which advertisers think can be added to any English word to make it seem French - le crunch, le shuttle, le car etc. The fact that "le car" actually means "the bus" in French is not the sort of thing that is likely to worry an English advertiser.

Obverse: Means the opposite of "reverse". Heads is obverse, tails is reverse. Nevertheless, more and more people are using "obverse" to mean "reverse". So much for education.

New: Word meaning "old-fashioned", as in New Man, New Romantics, New Age etc. Mission statement: Manifesto that's meaningless; the phrase "core values" occurs a lot in it.

Partner: A fellow doubles tennis player to whom one does not have to be married.

Polygonous: A new word that was invented by the Radio Times last week to mean "having several spouses", as in "polygonously married".

Saturation bombing: A technique used by the Americans to ensure that they hit the enemy as well as their own troops.

Shuttle: Any vehicle going regularly from any point in the known world to any other point is nowadays called a shuttle.

Synergy: A vague feeling of optimism that if everything works, failure may be averted.

Well driven? Often on the backs of lorries and vans these days, one sees a sign saying: "Well Driven? Phone 01249..." They don't want you to phone up if the vehicle is well driven, only if the driver is drunkenly going down the wrong side of a motorway. Thus, "well driven" in fact means "badly driven".