Isn’t the English language incredible? There are homophones, which are words that sound the same but have different meanings (such a rose – rose the flower and rose out of bed). And there are synonyms which are words spelled differently but with identical meanings, such as student and pupil.

I came across a surprising homophone this week which, to be truthful, isn’t actually in the dictionary but it made me smile: google.

The google we all know and love is, of course, that on-line omnipresent company which gives us loads of good stuff for free, primarily the search engine but also apps such as calendars and Google docs, Google earth and Google maps.

Now, less well-know are google buns, as described in Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree. I was reading this to my five-year-old and was very surprised to learn that a batch of these culinary treats had been cooked up by Moon-Face. Here’s how they are described:

“The buns were very strange. They each had a very large raisin in the middle, and this was filled with sherbet. So when you got to the raisin and bit it the sherbet frothed out and filled your mouth with fine bubbles that tasted delicious. The children got a real surprise when they bit their raisins, and Moon-Face almost fell off the branch with laughing.”

So, there you have it: google buns – a tasty, fantasy treat dreamed up by Enid Blyton; and Google – the internet giant which gives away things for free. Both great ideas and both stretch the imagination. Come on Oxford English Dictionary, you’ve got the internet Google in your lexicon why not add in Enid Blyton’s version?