Love your car way too much? There's a word for that

If you have already read our motoring editor's ode to all the grilles he's loved before you may be wondering, as I was, just how close is Thomas to his cars? Does he dream of engines wearing tank tops?

Falkiner says he is not as obsessed as some surmise. He never puts his automotive loyalties before the important people in his life (well, hardly ever).

He prefers the term "petrosexual" to "petrolhead" - this, he says, separates him from those Top Gear fanatics who would drive over a sultry brunette if she got between them and a crimson Corvette - but insists there is nothing of the dragon in his petrol-fuelled fantasies.

I did not know, until Falkiner enlightened me this week, that "a dragon" is slang for someone who loves cars way, way too much, and "to dragon" is the corresponding verb for the physical act of loving one's car way, way too much.

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If that needs spelling out, "dragoning" means doing a lot more to your convertible than taking it for a wash and wax every Saturday. There might even be dinner and a movie involved.

One should not confuse the new verb "dragon" with the old verb "dragoon". To dragoon (from the noun for an armed cavalryman) means to coerce someone into doing something they would rather not do.

Those who indulge in dragoning do not force their victims - I mean vehicles - to comply with their desires. It's all entirely consensual, and hopefully only with models manufactured before 1998.

Further research revealed that the dragon is a subspecies of the genus mecaphile, which according to Wiktionary is a person who expresses a "sexual desire for a mechanical inanimate object". Not all mecaphiles act on their inclinations - those that do are the dragons.

I can only assume that a dragon was chosen as the appropriate emblem for men who stare at cars in that way because of its scaly nature and its affinity for infernal combustion.

block_quotes_start I can only assume that a dragon was chosen as the appropriate emblem for men who stare at cars in that way because of its scaly nature and its affinity for infernal combustion block_quotes_end

But dragons were not the first animals to be called into service in the name of love. "Catting" (an abbreviation of "tom-catting") has been a slang verb for the indiscriminate pursuit of sexual encounters since the 1920s. More recent is "dogging", popular in Britain for those whose hobby is coupling in public places.

There are many other examples of innocent words carrying out profane duties (if you don't believe me, take a look at Roger's Profanisaurus). Perhaps dragonflies are also people with a penchant for outboard motors, and snapdragons might be those with a fetish for flowers.

The man who brought dragons out of the dark corners of the parking lot and into the lit-up lane of tabloid journalism is one Edward Smith, an American who starred in a six-part 2009 documentary called My Car is My Lover.

A somewhat misleading title, given that Smith's little black book contained the names and numbers of hundreds of cars.

The heart-warming part of this story came a few years later, when Smith found the one true love of his life, a curvaceous VW Beetle who goes by the name of Vanilla and to whom Smith has pledged his eternal troth - apart from a few meaningless trysts with a spicy truck called Ginger. Even dragons can be tamed, it seems.

There is of course a world of difference between a red-blooded, car-loving male and a fuel-injected, hundred-horsepower dragon.

Falkiner assures us he has never risked injury by becoming too attached to any of his vehicles. Nor does he give them names. So you can park your car in his driveway without fear.