👉 Okay, let’s tackle this wonderfully prickly little word: "arnell." Now, frankly, you won’t find “arnell,; anywhere in a standard English learner's book, unless that learner's book is secretly obsessed with badger folklore and the migratory habits of unusually grumpy snails.
Basically, an arnell isn't a thing. It isn't a place, or even remotely a useful piece of equipment. Instead, it describes the lingering, almost unsettling feeling you get when something almostly, maybe possibly, if you squinted and held your nose just right—maybe —was supposed to happen. Think about that moment right before a disastrous bake off when the meringue was tragically collapsing; the exact second the doorbell rang for an unwelcome houseguest. That faint, pathetic residue of expectation, that little ghost-of-possibility… that’s an embarrassingly strong but nebulous ‘arnell. The origin is wonderfully vague, frankly! It's a word I and my very eccentric acquaintance Bartholomew Prundleton invented to describe the human condition when we briefly, foolishly, cling to the wreckage of what could have been. Bartholomew insisted it sounded suitably mournful whilst also having the capacity to mock. (It was his absolute favourite). Now, here’s an unsettling sentence, just for you: ’The old woman sat on the porch swing, a fine, brittle ‘arnell settling upon her as she
