HAVE you peppered a pumpkin this week or perhaps knotted a nettle?

If you don’t know what I am talking about, that is the point of this week’s column.

Immigrants to the country are now being asked to prove their knowledge on things British that most of us wouldn’t even know.

They are also expected to learn the language but I am starting to think I would fail an English test after what has come across my desk this week.

I made up those introductory expressions and am going to find a meaning for them.

A colleague sent me a list of baffling words and phrases - these ones used in business.

Every profession has its own words and idioms and the world would be a less colourful place without them. But baffling is an apt description all the same.

Office jargon has been around for a lot of years but I haven’t heard of most of these.

See how you get on:

Blue sky thinking: It means “to generate creative ideas free from any practical restrains.”

I guess I thought that was what it meant although I just thought it was another way of saying “head in the clouds.”

Punch a puppy: It means to do something unpleasant - and is a most unpleasant way of sating it.

Peel the onion: Unwrapping the layers – looking into things in depth.

Wash its own face: I know this one because I have heard it on various antique shows - when the cost of the object being sold is the same as the cost of purchase - paying for itself.

Open the kimono: I don’t like this one. It seems creepy, racist, sexist and all the other ists and isms. Its meaning is simple, however. It means to ask someone to reveal information.

Bleeding edge: That is more cutting than cutting edge. this one is so sharp it leaves you bleeding.

Think outside the box: This is a common expression in and out of the office and means approaching a task or problem in an unconventional way.

Make hay: Even in the business world they know to take advantage when the time’s right - and make their hay when the sun shines.

Over the wall: My first thought was this was a mass escape from the office. No. It simply means to send stuff to clients.

To boil the ocean: Go figure! I would never have guessed that it just means to waste time on a meaningless task.

Helicopter view: This means a broad view of the business. You can imagine the helicopter rising to see the overview but I would still have thought the meaning of this was just the opposite of what it is. Helicopter parents, after all, are the ones who micromanage their kids.

Look under the bonnet: Another obvious one, I guess - have a look at the problem and see what’s going to make it go.

That’s the business world and some of it was easy enough to translate.

You could not say the same about another language I encountered this week - English as she’s spoke today.

The Oxford dictionary has added 1,000 words. I will leave you to figure them out.

Sky News has done an online quiz and I failed:

Here are the words: Mansplain, hangry, chaebol, deglobalisation, swag and snowflake.

The only one I could have guessed would be deglobalisation.

Mansplain – a man’s patronising way of explaining something to a woman.

Hangry – bad tempered because of hunger.

Chaebol – Doing your own thing on your own.

Deglobalisation – as it sounds: getting rid of globalisation.

Swag – bold self assurance.

Snowflake – no, not that one! There are now seven definitions of snowflake in a dictionary including dandruff.