Etymology
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
Lounge pants
At the Austrian embassy in Naples, a German diplomatist asked the great beauty Madame de Ventadour if she had been…
Gifting
Boris Johnson, the Telegraphsuggested last week, is understood to have a personal interest in rewilding, ‘recently gifting his father beavers…
Alas
Boris Johnson looked unhappy, as well he might, standing at his indoor lectern last Saturday to announce the new lockdown:…
Cyber
An advertisement from GCHQ provoked angry comment because it seemed to suggest that some ballet dancers would be better working…
Adrenochrome
QAnon, the conspiracy theorist’s conspiracy theory, teaches that President Donald Trump is in secret warfare with a worldwide network of…
Are you guilty of ‘genteelism’?
‘Everyone’s been very kind to my husband and I,’ said someone behind me in a (spaced) queue. That is the…
Bonk
I take it personally that a word I practically saw being born is now unrecognised by people almost old enough…
What ho
In the First Act of Othello, just as things are getting interesting, the audience hears someone calling from offstage: ‘What…
Herd immunity
‘It was the pyres,’ said my husband. He meant the effect of television pictures of cattle, hooves silhouetted against the…
Uptick
Political commentators love talking about the optics — the way something looks to voters. Just at the moment, though, everyone…
Scots
A teenager in North Carolina has been revealed as the creator of a fifth or even a half of the…
Reticent
Anna Massey had no dramatic training before appearing on stage in 1955 aged 17 in The Reluctant Debutante by William…
the vs The
I complained mildly seven years ago that the Court Circular, the official source for the doings of the British monarchy,…
