Mind your language
Where’s the ‘mystery’ in mystery plays?
In The Archers, Ambridge put on its own set of mystery plays dramatising the Nativity and Passion. BBC Radio 4…
When did ‘pikey’ become offensive?
A policeman sent a colleague who was house-sitting for him a WhatsApp message: ‘Keep the pikeys out.’ He was sacked…
What does ice cream have to do with ‘late capitalism’?
‘More to my taste is Trockenbeerenkapitalismus,’ said my husband with an intonation that indicated a joke. The joke was a…
What’s so funny about ‘helpmeet’?
‘What’s so funny?’ asked my husband, accusingly, as I made an amused noise while relaxing with a copy of the…
Is the Duke of York’s title really ‘untenable’?
‘Nurse! The tenaculum!’ exclaimed my husband in the manner of James Robertson Justice playing the surgeon Sir Lancelot Spratt. I’m…
The elementary misuse of ‘alumni’
My husband is forever being sent magazines from his Oxford college inviting him to give it money. I suggest he…
Backlash
‘Lashings of ginger beer?’ asked my husband when I mentioned backlash. He thought the phrase came from Enid Blyton, though…
What do Millwall supporters and internet alt-righters have in common?
My grown-up friends don’t use based in its new slangy sense, so I asked Veronica (whom I still think of…
The six ways to pronounce ‘Omicron’
‘There once was a curate of Kew, / Who kept a young cat in a pew,’ began my husband when…
Should we ramp down ramping down?
Language change outdoes nonsense, just as misbehaviour outdoes satire. In Through the Looking-Glass Alice mentions to the Gnat that, where…
How are you meant to pronounce Uranus?
I had thought there were two pronunciations of Uranus. My husband, still capable of distinguishing the anatomical from the planetary,…
Has Boris Johnson really ‘trashed’ parliament’s reputation?
‘When they posted the closing-night notice for his first Broadway play, Comes a Day, he went into a drunken rage,…
The real ‘scallop’ war: how do you pronounce it?
‘You say scallops and I say scallops,’ sang my husband in his best Ginger Rogers accents. Since we both pronounce…
Can men be witches?
‘No, darling, I certainly wouldn’t call you a witch,’ said my husband. ‘You’re not thin enough.’ The Oxford English Dictionary…
Can a criminal really be ‘prolific’?
The BBC made a documentary about a man sent to prison for being the ‘most prolific rapist in British legal…
The ground rules, from coffee to marriage
There’s a rude gesture in Pickwick that I don’t quite understand. Mr Jackson, a young lawyer’s clerk in conversation with…
What exactly is the ‘festive season’?
‘Here you are, darling,’ I said to my husband. ‘These lines might have been written for you: “Drinke, quaffe, be…
We are in a perfect storm of perfect storms
When my husband’s whisky glass fell off the little table next to his chair on to next door’s cat, which…
The problem with ‘bame’
In its coverage of the shuffled cabinet, the BBC added a note: ‘BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) is a…
Why do ministers – and bakers – love a rollout?
I was rolling out some pastry that had been cooling its pudgy heels in the fridge when voices on the…
What does Peter Quennell have to do with fish?
When Peter Quennell was sent down from Oxford for consorting with a woman called Cara (by Evelyn Waugh’s account), he…
How Shakespeare became ‘problematic’
‘This crossword is problematic!’ exclaimed my husband, tossing aside the folded newspaper marked with a ring where his whisky glass…
The language of the victimhood war
Language is used in a weird way in the victimhood war, where those who see themselves without agency bravely speak…
Aleatory, fate and a rolling of the dice
‘What do they mean, “Guess”?’ asked my husband, staring suspiciously at a page of the Daily Mail that had been…
