Scobberlotcher
Hilary Spurling found a certain blunting of the irregularities of John Aubrey’s language in Ruth Scurr’s vicarious autobiography of the…
Negatively impacted
Maureen Finucane of Richmond, Surrey, wonders whether there is any branch of public service not infected by Orwellian Newspeak. In…
Anniversary
‘You must promise to be with us for our silver wedding D.V. which will be in four years,’ wrote Queen…
Robust
‘Heart of Oak are our ships, Jolly Tars are our men,’ shouted my husband unconvincingly. He has taken to doing…
Dodgy
‘I hate Jammie Dodgers,’ said my husband staring disdainfully at a biscuit kindly tucked into his coffee saucer at an…
Likely
What, asks Christian Major of Bromley, Kent, do I think of ‘this new, I assume American, fad for using the…
Twitter style
I don’t know if you tweet — No! Don’t turn over, I’m not going to get all techie. I do…
Coloured
Benedict Cumberbatch apologised at length: ‘devastated’, ‘shaming’, ‘offended’, ‘inappropriate’. What had he done? Been caught in a compromising situation or…
Existential threat
In the endless game of word association that governs vocabulary, the current favourite as a partner of existential is threat.…
Prolific
I read somewhere recently of a Soho artist who was a ‘prolific drinker’. The meaning is clear, but hasn’t the…
Parenting
‘Not still War and Peace!’ exclaimed my husband on 1 January during the all-day Tolstoy splurge on Radio 4. In reality…
Plurals
Someone on Radio 4 said she had heard about the sexism of Grand Theft Auto on ‘Women’s Hour’. It is…
No crib for a bed
I could never understand as a little girl why we sang: ‘Away in a manger, no crib for a bed.’…
Control
In his speech on immigration last week, David Cameron said a couple of funny things. I’m not talking about the…
Respect
‘Respect!’ cried my husband, drop-kicking a cushion with a picture of the Queen Mother holding a pint of beer on…
Reem
Joey Essex is a celebrity who appeared in the ‘scripted reality’ programme The Only Way is Essex, named not after…
Incident
I had thought that the saying ‘Accidents will happen in the best regulated families’ was a vulgar reference to children…
Suicide
There was a marvellous man in Shakespeare’s day known as John Smyth the Sebaptist. ‘In an act so deeply shocking…
Anachronisms
I read C.J. Sansom’s novel Dissolution on the train recently with pleasure. For an historical novel narrated in the 1530s,…
Ebola
It should perhaps be called Yambuku fever, since that was the village in Zaire (as it was then, now the…
What’s sauce for the goose…
‘Goosey, goosey gander,’ my husband shouted at the television, like someone from Gogglebox. It’s not so much that he thinks…
Dull
At least I’ve got my husband’s Christmas present sorted out: the Dull Men of Great Britain calendar. It is no…
Mark Reckless
When I first heard ‘Wonderwall’ being played in a public house, in 1995 I suppose, I thought it was some…
The Islamic State
I’m puzzled by the dropping of the one part of the name of the Islamic State that seems certain. That…
Never
He won’t be remembered as Lord Bannside, but Ian Paisley will be remembered for shouting: ‘Never, never, never, never.’ The…
