I read C.J. Sansom’s novel Dissolution on the train recently with pleasure. For an historical novel narrated in the 1530s, what was the author to do about language? He eschewed godwottery (which Fowler, in a dated term, called Wardour Street, after the old furniture once sold there). But I did gulp at page 273: ‘I got up, waving my arms and stamping my feet to restore the circulation.’