Language
Quenelles
When Peter Quennell was sent down from Oxford for consorting with a woman called Cara (by Evelyn Waugh’s account), he…
Problematic
‘This crossword is problematic!’ exclaimed my husband, tossing aside the folded newspaper marked with a ring where his whisky glass…
Barking up the right tree
The government’s promise to fund a pilot scheme promoting the teaching of Latin in secondary schools is music to the…
Actor
‘That chap in Line of Duty. That’s what I’d call a bad actor,’ said my husband with vague certainty. He…
Wash-up
‘They asked me if I wanted to wash up before we even went in to dinner,’ my husband recalled with…
Holland
The title of the keenly awaited volume of memoirs by John Martin Robinson sounds like a crossword clue: Holland Blind…
Leather and prunella
‘Oh, yes,’ said my husband, enthusiastically, ‘a loathsome disease. The tongue goes black and dry.’ He was referring to an…
Pinged
‘Ping, ping, ping went the bell,’ sang my husband, making his eyes wide and jigging in his best imitation of…
Soccer
I have never been a soccer mom, described in the Washington Post as ‘the overburdened, middle-income working mother who ferries…
Me, myself and I
I thought that this week I would share with you a bunch of words and phrases which are currently overused…
Huntin’, shootin’, fishin’
In 1923 in Whose Body? we were introduced to Lord Peter Wimsey on his way to an auction where he…
Critique
Six years ago I wrote here about critique, as a noun or verb, and things have gone from bad to…
Gender critical
Seeing my husband in his armchair snoozing, as his unacknowledged habit is, head back, mouth open, stertorous and blotchy, it…
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…
Sex education
The publication of the new Cambridge Greek Lexicon reminded the comedian and classicist Natalie Haynes of her frustrations at school,…
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…
Its and it’s
An item on the BBC news site didn’t mean what it said: ‘The latest move is part of a wider…
Customer disservice
The insidious creep of corporate friendliness
The Spectator’s Notes
There should be more ‘religious literacy’. So says the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Religion in the Media, chaired by Yasmin…
Talking point
Gossip appears to be good for the mental health. That should make the females of the ancient world some of…
Shame on you!
As his tweed jacket flapped open to one side of his stomach, my husband stood up unsteadily and arched his…
Sleaze
‘Sleaze, sleaze, sleaze!’ exclaimed Sir Keir Starmer in Prime Minister’s Questions last week, hoping that a triple serving might stick.…
Under the spell
Some universities have announced that spelling and grammar (i.e. morphology and syntax) are not all that important, but quality of…
