I was born with a bifid uvula. The more astute reader will recognise that my web domain is ‘Bifeduvula.com’. I have misspelt the word and the correct spelling is ‘bifid’. When I set it up, I made this spelling error and it wasn’t until I did a bit more research that I discovered my mistake. It’s unforgivable, given that I had undertaken two full years of anatomy dissection in medical school.

A bifid uvula is when that little dangly bit of soft tissue at the back of the throat (the uvula) is split into two parts instead of being one smooth, single piece – so it looks forked or divided down the middle, a bit like a snake’s tongue.

It happens before birth, when the tissue doesn’t fully merge together in the midline. The developing embryo has two sides which slowly fuse together – right and left. In a small proportion of foetuses, this can lead to, possibly the worst case scenario – a cleft lip and an associated cleft palate. Thankfully, I only have the dangly bit of soft tissue.

I thought about changing it to the correct spelling, but by this time I had self-published two books using the name Bifeduvula Books, so it’s a quirky misnomer, indeed almost a neologism, which I’ve chosen to keep.