When your teeth bite the dust, life becomes a series of indignities

The toothless person’s chin rises up to their nose, just like the profile of a witch in a Hallowe’en mask, writes Terry Prone

EASTER is a good time for the edentulous, because chocolate, as well as being delicious, melts in the mouth and requires no chewing. Chewing is beyond the edentulous. The most they can do is give something a good gumming.

Not that many people admit to being edentulous, not least because the word is not common currency. Instead, we talk of people being toothless, if we talk of the topic at all, which most of the time we don’t, because those of us who are edentulous are mortified about it.