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Yale There are yales at Yale University, readers tell me. Two in chains flank the portico of Davenport College and one is depicted on the official banner of the president of the university. The campus radio station uses a yale as a logo. This is actually a play on words, since the university was named in memory of Elihu Yale, a governor of the British East India Company. His name comes from Iâl, a place in north Wales, which in turn is from the Welsh word for a fertile or arable upland.

Aussie rules Readers' pointed out that the second expression I discussed last week, don't piss in my pocket, is a shortened form of don't piss in my pocket and tell me it's raining. The expression is also known with down my back and down my leg instead. They mean "don't take me for a fool, don't try to deceive me, don't flatter me with your lies". Plain-speaking Australians are notoriously unreceptive to what one correspondent described as "sneaky conniving bastards". As I noted, the abbreviated down my back version is as least as old as the early nineteenth century.

Competition update We're on the final straight in the contest for the 2011 Best Website About the English Language, organised by the Macmillan Dictionary. Voting closes at midnight GMT on 31 January. World Wide Words is second but running about a thousand votes behind the leader. One last push, people, please! If you haven't yet voted, please do. (World Wide Words is on page three of the list.)