
My friends Geoff and Edna suggested
rummage as a word of the week*. Like us, they're campervanners** (the picture is of the four of us celebrating finding a good pitch)
Campervanners often have to
rummage. It can mean to search untidily and unsystematically. It doesn't matter how tidily and systematically you pack your van, that kind of approach never works when it comes to finding the corkscrew and chocolate.
A
rummage can be a confused miscellanuous collection (of craft supplies perhaps, Edna?) A
rummager is someone who
rummages. Once you've finished
rummaging you will have
rummaged for long enough.
To
rummage out is to find amongst other things. To
rummage about is to disarrange. (That's another good word)
Rummage also refers to the arrangement of casks in the hold of a ship. That definitely needs to be done tidily and systematically or the ship will become unstable. Also it'll mean the sailors have to
rummage about to find their rum.
*Pity it wasn't
rustle, or I could have told you about Edna
rustling up thai green kippers, or the time Geoff got us lost in the fog and we heard weird
rustling sounds in the night (which turned out to be hundreds of sheep we'd not seen through the mist on our arrival)
**They're the friends mentioned in
my recent radio interview. My bit starts ten minutes in and lasts for five minutes.