Etymology
Sliver
When people say a slither of cake, do they not remember that snakes slither? ‘Slither slide; sliver small piece,’ says…
Overhaul
Last week, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer were overhauling their stores. Football clubs were madly overhauling teams and we…
Great
‘Why didn’t they call it Very British Railways?’ asked my husband. Unwittingly (as in most of his remarks), he had…
Level
‘I must level with you, level with the British public, many more families are going to lose loved ones.’ That…
Sleaze
‘Sleaze, sleaze, sleaze!’ exclaimed Sir Keir Starmer in Prime Minister’s Questions last week, hoping that a triple serving might stick.…
Supermajority
‘Wizard,’ said William. ‘Super,’ said Ginger, in William and the Moon Rocket (1954). More recently we have had Alex Salmond,…
Shonky
A reader sent in a television preview from the Daily Star for Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds in which ‘Brad Pitt leads…
Alba
‘What, old monkey-face!’ said my husband with unnecessary lack of gallantry. He was referring to the 18th Duchess of Alba,…
Sacred space
‘This is the book that horses wish every equestrian would read,’ says the blurb for Sacred Spaces: Communion with the…
Formica
If I ever again accompany my husband to a medical conference in Spain, and want to tell my hosts that…
Similar to
‘Blame Kingsley Amis,’ said my husband, with the carelessness of one defying a man out of earshot. The blame, such…
Espouse
What do people think espouse means? It looks fairly plain, since spouses are to have and to hold, or indeed…
Beware the linguistic Trojan horse
It’s the bane of many an author these days: those newspaper-filler Q&As. One I recently filled out included the question:…
Nimble
‘I’ll stick to being Brazilian,’ said my husband. It was a family joke. Every time a politician on the radio…
Titles of courtesy
I agree with Charles Moore (The Spectator, 6 February) that it is a shame the Times is dropping its use…
Grim
‘Thus I refute Bishop Berkeley,’ said my husband, multitasking by kicking the stone and slightly misquoting Samuel Johnson at the…
Kind regards
Suzanne Moore, the Telegraphcolumnist, found it ‘deeply annoying’ when perhaps five years ago she noticed people putting ‘Kind regards’ at…
Polari
In discussing the German low-life cant called Rotwelsch, Mark Glanville (Books, 9 January) referred in passing to Polari, ‘the language…
Performative
Veronica brought me a hundred newspapers so that I could check on one word. Well, she didn’t bring a wheelbarrow,…
Segment
In the aisle of Tesco I stood like one thunderstruck. It was not the print of a man’s naked foot…
Word of the year
In 2015 smombie became the Youth Word of the Year in Germany. In January 2016 a survey found that 92…
Mind your language
‘Try the sports pages,’ said my husband, stirring in his armchair. I was looking for examples of fortuitousused as though…
Strange
‘Forget coronavirus,’ said my husband, ‘the word of the year is strange.’ The strange thing is he’s right. This wasn’t…
Robust
‘Why do they keep saying they need Brazilians?’ asked my husband, coming up for air from a hazy mixture of…
War of words
How to win at Scrabble
