Leading article: The free meerkat

Women, it seems, best remember adverts about sofas. Men, we're told, most recall laddish beer adverts. So what breaks down the gender divide? Simples. It's that pesky meerkat from the insurance price comparison advert. Both genders were surveyed and it turns out that, for men and women alike, the Compare-the-Meerkat insurance ads are the most memorable of the last year. Which perhaps explains why the meerkat in question is publishing his autobiography and why his "simples" catchphrase has just entered the Collins English Dictionary.

But you can tell a lot about a word by the company it keeps. Other new entries, thanks to the advent of micro-blogging, include tweetheart (a person much admired by other twitterers) and tweet tooth which describes an uncontrollable urge to post a tweet. Will they last? Bigotgate, describing Gordon Brown's unfortunate encounter with a hitherto Labour voter in Rochdale, sounds long gone already. So does Cleggmania. While David Cameron's contribution – broken society – is perhaps an expression of fiction rather than fact. Likewise funemployment – a noun purporting to mean the condition of enjoying being without work. It could come to some dictionary editors (if not the meerkat) sooner than they might suppose.