Dot Wordsworth

Are Reeves and Starmer really in ‘lockstep’?

12 July 2025 9:00 am

‘She and I work together, we think together,’ said Sir Keir Starmer of Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.…

The politics of pips

5 July 2025 9:00 am

‘What larks!’ exclaimed my husband archly, assuming that a connection between personal independence payments and Pip in Great Expectations would…

The cunning meanings of quant

28 June 2025 9:00 am

The FT headline said: ‘Man Group orders quants back to office five days a week.’ I didn’t know what quants…

The politics of ‘rocket boosters’

21 June 2025 9:00 am

Sir Keir Starmer said the other day that he wanted to put rocket boosters under AI. It’s not the only…

How can ‘sanction’ mean two opposing things?

14 June 2025 9:00 am

Sir Keir Starmer said ‘he could “not imagine” the circumstances in which he would sanction a new referendum’ on Scottish…

Spinoza, Epicurus and the question of ‘epikoros’

31 May 2025 9:00 am

With surprise, I heard from a Jewish friend that a Hebrew term for a heretic is epikoros, apparently derived from…

Is Nigel Farage a ‘viper’?

24 May 2025 9:00 am

‘Farage is no leader,’ said Rupert Lowe MP. ‘He is a coward and a viper.’ Cedric Hardwicke immediately came to…

How do you pronounce ‘mayoralty’?

10 May 2025 9:00 am

‘Six!’ cried my husband, waving his notebook as he monitored the by-elections. He wasn’t counting Reform wins but the ways…

‘Trillions’ doesn’t add up

12 April 2025 9:00 am

‘Oh no, darling’ said my husband, stirring from torpor in his armchair, ‘only about seven ounces of you is bacteria…

What is ‘misogynoir’?

5 April 2025 9:00 am

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been troubled by two verbal peculiarities in a week. The Duchess corrected a…

Why do we diminish ‘compendious’?

29 March 2025 9:00 am

My husband has been telling me, at some length, about the Gamages Christmas catalogue that fired his childhood imagination and…

Do you ‘damp down’ or ‘tamp down’?

22 March 2025 9:00 am

‘Dampfschifffahrt!’ shouted my husband as though it were funny. I had been saying how strange it was that explosive gas…

What does Meghan mean by ‘intentional living’?

15 March 2025 9:00 am

‘What are your intentions towards my daughter?’ said my husband, screwing an imaginary monocle into his eye. We had been…

Geoffrey Madan and the joy of ‘unusual articles’

1 March 2025 9:00 am

In 1924 Geoffrey Madan retired, aged 29, and devoted himself to books. ‘A genius for friendship, selfless devotion to progressive…

RFK Jr and the curious birth of ‘brainchild’

22 February 2025 9:00 am

‘No, RFK didn’t have a tapeworm eating his brain,’ declared my husband in the rare tone he adopts when he…

What does your name say about you?

22 February 2025 9:00 am

In 2015, an orthopaedic surgeon called Limb, with three other doctors called Limb, wrote a paper on whether people’s names…

Does Rachel Reeves know what ‘kickstart’ means?

15 February 2025 9:00 am

To ‘kickstart economic growth’ is the first (‘number one’) of Labour’s five ‘missions’ to rebuild Britain. That is what the…

‘Loved ones’ are everywhere at this time of year

8 February 2025 9:00 am

‘My heart will melt in your mouth,’ said my husband gallantly, unwrapping some leeks from a copy of the Sun…