Language
Poop
Danny Alexander recounted in the Diary last week his daughter’s efforts in making unicorn poop. This is something of a…
Scobberlotcher
Hilary Spurling found a certain blunting of the irregularities of John Aubrey’s language in Ruth Scurr’s vicarious autobiography of the…
Negatively impacted
Maureen Finucane of Richmond, Surrey, wonders whether there is any branch of public service not infected by Orwellian Newspeak. In…
Anniversary
‘You must promise to be with us for our silver wedding D.V. which will be in four years,’ wrote Queen…
Robust
‘Heart of Oak are our ships, Jolly Tars are our men,’ shouted my husband unconvincingly. He has taken to doing…
Twitter style
I don’t know if you tweet — No! Don’t turn over, I’m not going to get all techie. I do…
Coloured
Benedict Cumberbatch apologised at length: ‘devastated’, ‘shaming’, ‘offended’, ‘inappropriate’. What had he done? Been caught in a compromising situation or…
Lapsing into a comma
Modern manners and the fear of the full stop
Prolific
I read somewhere recently of a Soho artist who was a ‘prolific drinker’. The meaning is clear, but hasn’t the…
Get over yourself
Is there any cure for this piece of corporate speak?
Parenting
‘Not still War and Peace!’ exclaimed my husband on 1 January during the all-day Tolstoy splurge on Radio 4. In reality…
Plurals
Someone on Radio 4 said she had heard about the sexism of Grand Theft Auto on ‘Women’s Hour’. It is…
Reem
Joey Essex is a celebrity who appeared in the ‘scripted reality’ programme The Only Way is Essex, named not after…
Ebola
It should perhaps be called Yambuku fever, since that was the village in Zaire (as it was then, now the…
What’s sauce for the goose…
‘Goosey, goosey gander,’ my husband shouted at the television, like someone from Gogglebox. It’s not so much that he thinks…
Dull
At least I’ve got my husband’s Christmas present sorted out: the Dull Men of Great Britain calendar. It is no…
Mark Reckless
When I first heard ‘Wonderwall’ being played in a public house, in 1995 I suppose, I thought it was some…
Never
He won’t be remembered as Lord Bannside, but Ian Paisley will be remembered for shouting: ‘Never, never, never, never.’ The…
Knee-jerk
A little joke by Paddy, Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, turned upon something to be shunned. Conservative ministers, he said, had…
Escalated
Shaun Wright, the police and crime commissioner for South Yorkshire, spoke to Sky television last week about how little he…
Bitter
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ is one of husband’s stock phrases — jokes he would think them — in this…
Humanitarian
‘Our first priority,’ David Cameron said this week, ‘has of course been to deal with the acute humanitarian crisis in…
Stand
‘Boris Johnson broke cover yesterday to declare that he will run for parliament,’ the Times reported last week. The Mirror…
Pre-diabetes
‘Pre-diabetes is an artificial category with virtually zero clinical relevance,’ said an American professor in the Times. A friend of…
Isis
‘This’ll make you laugh,’ said my husband, looking up from the Daily Telegraph. For once he was right. It was…
