Is it the cream or the scum that rises to the top?
Maybe it’s a scream?
Anitra Nelson, Campbells Creek, Victoria, Australia
• It depends on whether you’re talking about milk, other liquid or dominance hierarchy.
Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills, Victoria, Australia
• Usually the scum makes its way to the top, taking much of the cream with it.
Jennifer Rathbone, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• It depends on whether you are talking about fresh milk or jam making. In other areas of life, it similarly depends on your point of view.
Avril Taylor, Dundas, Ontario, Canada
• Normally the cream, unless it gets clotted.
David Tucker, Halle, Germany
• That all depends upon what is underneath.
Philip Stigger, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
• I had to clean out the waste pump of my cafe yesterday and I can safely tell you it is both.
Marcus Allison, Brisbane, Australia
• In Cornwall the cream goes on top: in Devonshire it’s the jam, or whatever, on top.
Alaisdair Raynham, Truro, Cornwall, UK
• Surely this must be a good old-fashioned Grauniad typo. It’s the cream of the scum that rises to the top.
John Hazlehurst, Dalton-in-Furness, Cumbria, UK
Best to butter both sides
Where do I buy my ticket to ride the gravy train?
Just line up behind the goose that laid the golden egg.
Mary Garnett, Kaslo, British Columbia, Canada
• If current affairs here in Canada are anything to go by, the questioner should check out possibilities at the Senate.
Anthony Walter, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
• On the boat.
John Black, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada
• Buy it from the window between the one selling “have your cake and eat it too” and the one selling bread buttered on both sides.
Gerald Garnett, Kaslo, British Columbia, Canada
Think trumpet and trombone
If speech is silver and silence golden, what is texting?
The answer seems to require something at once precious and of the periodic table, so my suggestion would be diamond. Diamond is no more, or less, than carbon: atomic number 6. Carbon exists in many different forms, think graphite, diamond and soot, a fact which makes our kind of life possible. Carbon atoms can link in many ways and are, thus, a metaphor for the electronic web of which phones and texting are a part.
Brian Lentle, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
• Texting, by its very nature, is gild, not even bronze.
Bruce Cohen, Worcester, Massachusetts, US
• Brassy (loud, saucy and annoying).
Verity Limond, Dublin, Ireland
• Mo is the go – nobody cares how is spelled in texting.
David Czifra, Marrickville, NSW, Australia
• It has to be “dross”.
Kate Light, Motueka, New Zealand
Any answers?
Is it possible to be envious without being jealous and vice versa?
Anthony Walter, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
If you were word master, what words would you outlaw?
Elliott Willis, West Sussex, UK
Send answers, and more questions, to weekly.nandq@theguardian.com or Guardian Weekly, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, UK
