English language
Diary
I’m counting ‘Wows!’ Suddenly everyone is using this irritating expletive expressing incredulity, amazement and nothing at all. I’ve heard it…
Fulsome
It’s funny that two much misused words end in —some: fulsome and noisome. Noisome is the less often used at…
N.M. Gwynne’s diary: Old names worth dropping
As I get older (and my 74th birthday is now close), I get deeper and deeper into nostalgia. I do…
Can politicians say ‘crusade’ again? David Cameron thinks so
One thing grabbed my attention from David Cameron’s speech, long ago in the middle of last week. ‘We need a…
I invented ‘virtue signalling’. Now it’s taking over the world
I invented the term ‘virtue signalling’ in The Spectator. Now it seems to be taking over the world
The weird truth about the word ‘normal’
‘Is Nicky Morgan too “normal” to be the next prime minister?’ asked someone in the Daily Telegraph. That would make…
Critique
I lost my husband on the way from Malabar. He is easily lost. We had been talking about the verb…
Fuckebythenavele
A great discovery has been made by Dr Paul Booth, a fellow of Keele University. It is a 14th-century example…
Twitter speak
‘Tweeting’s like text messaging, isn’t it?’ said my husband confidently, though not, as usual, from any knowledge of the matter.…
Credible
In a wonderfully dry manual of theology on my husband’s bookshelves, written in Latin and printed in Naples in the…
Migrant
Al Jazeera, the Qatari broadcaster, is going to use refugee instead of migrant in its English output. ‘The umbrella term…
Names
We reached peak Charlie in 2012, when 5,571 baby boys were given the name. There were only 4,642 last year.…
Asexual
There was a time when my husband, who often addresses the television, would habitually react to Edward Heath’s appearance on…
Old boys’ network
I'm 43. Why do I still not refer to myself as a man?
Big ask
‘That’s unnecessarily crude,’ said my husband, turning momentarily from the television and improving the shining minute by setting the whisky…
I love it that you…
I had never heard the Country (Red Dirt) singer Wade Bowen before, although his latest album Hold my Beer (Vol 1)…
Charon
‘What about the moon Tracey?’ asked my husband facetiously when an astronomer on the wireless, talking of Pluto’s moon Charon,…
Due diligence
No doubt you, too, have had the feeling, upon glancing at an article in a paper picked up in a…
In defence of Gove’s grammar
Few things are more likely to provoke the disapproval of the bien-pensant left than criticising someone’s grammar. The very idea…
On the cusp
‘A stalker who dressed a pillow “mannequin” in his ex’s nurse’s uniform, then sent her a picture, has been told…
Barometer
Dropping the Clangers The Clangers made a comeback on BBC television. Some Clanger facts: — The actors doing the voices…
Speak human
The next Labour leader will have to be able to speak human, said a piece in the Observer. This, it…
Trigger
A notion is going about that, just as readers of film reviews receive spoiler alerts, so readers of anything should…
Brain fade
‘Aa-aah,’ groaned my husband, ‘we fade to grey.’ He had never been much of a Young Romantic, even when Visage…
Eurovision-speak
Like a reluctantly remembered nightmare, last week’s Eurovision Song Contest already seems very distant. But, in the manner of the…
