Although the Old Testament does not explicitly say so, there is a good chance that some of Noah’s naughty neighbours were punished because they had, among other things, engaged in catillation, that is, the unseemly licking of plates. This word, which does not apply to the bowls in which my mother makes her chocolate icing, appeared in the early seventeenth century, having been derived from the Latin catillus, meaning plate. Catillus, incidentally, is also the source of the word kettle.