Mind your language
What's in a universe?
‘So there are lots of universes besides ours,’ the ancient atomists concluded, in the brief account by Peter Jones (Ancient…
Ping – a silly word with a heroic history
In the search for the remains of flight MH370, a pulse signal was detected beneath the ocean. The BBC called…
Why did we ever spell jail gaol?
‘Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect £200.’ said the Community Chest card…
When did we stop ‘tossing’ coins?
What kind of scientists do school inspectors not need to be? ‘Inspectors don’t need to be rocket scientists.’ For what…
When Google can't help you
‘Ask your telephone,’ said my husband satirically when I made an innocent enquiry on a point of fact. My telephone…
How 'de-escalate' escalated
‘What we want to see,’ David Cameron said last week, ‘is a de-escalation.’ Or, as the Tanaiste of Ireland put…
Very bad poems on the Underground
My husband was surprised by quite a bit when we travelled by Underground in London the other day. Although he…
Why does everything suddenly need 'resilience'?
They were talking on the wireless about Brazilians in the flooded areas, or so I thought. Once the kettle had…
When Scotland goes, will England return?
Who, my husband asked, expects every man will do his duty? He was responding to the interesting and important question…
A learned poet's mystifying mistakes
I enjoy Poetry Please, but was shouting mildly at the wireless the other day when a northern woman poet was…
Lumpen’s journey from Marxism to nonsense
A publisher, Kevin Mayhew, has written to The Tablet, which is not a computer journal but a weekly magazine of…
Big changes in little words
I managed to grab the TLS last week before my husband stuffed it in his overcoat pocket and lost it…
Challenging 'challenging'
‘Pistols at dawn,’ said my husband, flapping a pair of Marigold rubber gloves from the other side of the kitchen. ‘I don’t…
Where did ‘No justice, no peace’ come from?
The chant No justice, no peace by supporters of Mark Duggan, the drug gangster shot dead by police in 2011,…
Dot Wordsworth: How online shopping is changing English
How do you play the lottery? The National Lottery website has a handy guide. Step No. 1 is: ‘Go into…
Dot Wordsworth: Lost in England? Ask for a bread roll
If Manchester University is to be believed, last year saw a creeping advance of effete southern language into the gritty…
Why twerking sounds so stupid
The Widow Twankey first appeared on stage in 1861. At that time daily papers listed on Boxing Day dozens of novelty-stuffed…
Dot Wordsworth: Jostling aggressively with 'selfie' and 'twerk', we have 'push back'
Something funny happened when my husband yawned. I yawned. That wasn’t the funny thing. The funny thing was that I…
Dot Wordsworth: Don't call him Revd Flowers!
‘Here,’ said my husband, chucking a folded-back copy of the Daily Telegraph to me, ‘this’ll interest you.’ For once he…
Aunt
Catching up with the excellent biography of the 3rd Marquess of Bute (the man who built Cardiff Castle among other…
Dot Wordsworth: Is M&S really 'Magic & Sparkle'?
‘Believe in Magic & Sparkle,’ says the Marks & Spencer television Christmas advertisement. The phrase is meant to suggest the…
Collagen
I saw an advertisement for Active Gold Collagen, and I realised I didn’t know what collagen means. My husband just…
The week in words: 'Pull & Bear' is all style, no substance
‘This’ll make you laugh,’ said my husband, sounding like George V commenting on an Impressionist painting. ‘Someone in the Telegraph…
The bare-brained youth of south London
‘Bare? Extra? What does it all mean?’ asked my husband, sounding like George Smiley in the middle of a particularly…
Word of the Week: Does it matter who uses the N-word?
The BBC is to broadcast what is now referred to as the ‘C-word’ in a drama about Dylan Thomas. ‘It…
