Language
Support
When I asked my husband why paramedical professions were given to remaking the language in strange ways, he replied in…
Basta
My chickens do not usually come home to roost so rapidly. Only a fortnight ago I wrote that ‘some people use…
Marylebone
‘Take a trip to Marylebone station,’ chanted my husband. ‘Do not pass Go. Do not collect £200.’ I had been…
Bugger
The French for tête-à-tête is one-to-one now, according to a new survey of English invaders by Alexandre des Isnards. Actually,…
Shouty
Hitler was ‘dark, shouty, moustachioed’ in Churchill’s eyes, or rather, that was Jonathan Rose’s view of how Churchill saw Hitler,…
Letters
Chapter and verse on Islam Sir: Irshad Manji’s generally very sensible article on ‘Reclaiming Islam’ (29 March) suggests using the…
Jail
‘Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect £200.’ said the Community Chest card…
Flip
What kind of scientists do school inspectors not need to be? ‘Inspectors don’t need to be rocket scientists.’ For what…
McBess
My husband was surprised by quite a bit when we travelled by Underground in London the other day. Although he…
England
Who, my husband asked, expects every man will do his duty? He was responding to the interesting and important question…
It has to stop?
Upspeak can damage your career prospects
Mistakes
I enjoy Poetry Please, but was shouting mildly at the wireless the other day when a northern woman poet was…
Lumpen
A publisher, Kevin Mayhew, has written to The Tablet, which is not a computer journal but a weekly magazine of…
Out
I managed to grab the TLS last week before my husband stuffed it in his overcoat pocket and lost it…
No justice, no peace
The chant No justice, no peace by supporters of Mark Duggan, the drug gangster shot dead by police in 2011,…
In store
How do you play the lottery? The National Lottery website has a handy guide. Step No. 1 is: ‘Go into…
Believe
‘Believe in Magic & Sparkle,’ says the Marks & Spencer television Christmas advertisement. The phrase is meant to suggest the…
Bare ruined choirs
I am shocked to find that William Empson, famous for his technique of close reading, was no good at reading…
Self-whipping
Isabel Hardman of this parish explained after last week’s government defeat that a deluded theory among the party leadership had…
Letters
Some doctors write Sir: Professor Meirion Thomas (‘Dangerous medicine’, 17 August) may be an excellent surgeon but he is uninformed…
Hopefully
There was outrage last week when it was found that the Oxford English Dictionary had listed one sense of literally…
Fracking
‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a frack,’ replied my husband unwittily when I asked how he’d feel if shale…
Arab Spring
Two hundred and forty-years ago next Tuesday, Thomas Gray was buried in his mother’s grave in Stoke Poges churchyard. In…
‘Correct names’
In a very rum letter to the Daily Telegraph, the Mother’s Union of all people joined with some other bodies…
Dreamliner
‘Planes don’t run off batteries,’ declared my husband, his finger unerringly on the pulse of technology as ever. I had…
