Obligallop

You are eleven metres from a door when a stranger reaches it first, glances back, and decides — generously, catastrophically — to hold it open for you. The distance is far too long to walk and far too short to run. You are now contractually obliged to do something with your legs.

From the Latin obligare, to bind by promise, and the Middle English galopen, to gallop. First recorded, we like to imagine, in a draughty monastery, where somebody held a door for a monk carrying an unwise number of candles.

Obligallop (n.): the small, largely decorative jog performed by a person for whom a door is being held, across a distance they would otherwise have walked. Its defining feature is that it is not actually faster than walking. The arms swing. The shoulders bounce. The bag thumps against the hip. The speed is unchanged. It is gratitude wearing a tracksuit.

Usage: I obligalloped the entire length of the lobby for a man who then held the door for four more people, which rather undid the urgency. There is no cure, and no need for one. Somewhere today a stranger will wait three extra seconds for you, and you will perform a silly little run to thank them, and you will both pretend it was necessary. It is one of the kinder pointless things people do for each other.