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Mind your language

Alas, ‘alas’ is losing its irony

7 November 2020

9:00 AM

7 November 2020

9:00 AM

Boris Johnson looked unhappy, as well he might, standing at his indoor lectern last Saturday to announce the new lockdown: ‘In this country, alas, as across much of Europe, the virus is spreading.’

He said alas a couple more times during the conference. Normally such a word belongs to the sprinkling of slightly absurd phrases that garnish his speech like particularly curly parsley.

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