Etymology
Vape
Last year, Oxford Languages’ word of the year was goblin mode. Apparently 300,000 voters decided upon it, but I haven’t…
Great British
Sir Keir Starmer told his party conference last month that a Labour government would within a year set up a…
Crisis
In his picture from 1932, ‘Derrière la gare Saint-Lazare’, Henri Cartier-Bresson caught the moment when a man in a hat…
Pop
The Guardian kindly tells us that green is a colour whose time has come: ‘A blazer or a cotton shirt…
Budget
The Budget (which the revolutionary fiscal act last week was technically not) is directly connected with bilge and with one…
Dire
‘Dire?’ said my husband. ‘It’s something chronic.’ He was putting on his idea of an Estuary accent, in a manner…
Corn
‘Wha, wha?’ said my husband in a slack-jawed way, throwing over a copy of the Guardian, as though it was…
Mental health
It is easy to laugh at young people asking for sympathy because ‘I’ve got mental health’. I think I heard…
Struggling
‘Quicksand!’ yelled my husband, flailing his arms wildly. Since he was sitting in his armchair, his dramatic representation of a…
Missing in action
Someone in the Guardian wrote that Boris Johnson had his ‘out of office’ on, and the Chancellor was ‘missing in…
Hosepipe ban
‘Got any ’ose?’ asked my husband, falling into his Two Ronnies ‘Four Candles’ routine, in which he likes to play…
Catcalls
‘A law against catcalls?’ asked my husband sceptically. ‘What next, criminalising booing and hissing?’ He often gets the wrong end…
Flageons
‘Don’t you know the answer?’ asked my husband with mock surprise, throwing over to me from his armchair a copy…
Culture wars
‘Come on, old girl,’ said my husband as though encouraging a cow stuck in a ditch, ‘you must know.’ It…
Our
There was a word I didn’t understand in Boris Johnson’s resignation speech (in which he did not resign). He spoke…
