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Mind your language

Rocks

1 April 2023

9:00 AM

1 April 2023

9:00 AM

‘You rocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things,’ exclaimed my husband, misquoting Shakespeare as though it were an improvement. In English a rock is different from a stone and it can be annoying when news reports, especially on radio and television, speak of crowds throwing rocks.

This Americanism has not yet ousted stones in British English.

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