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Mind your language

The Lib Dems are wrong – it’s ‘ballocks’ to Brexit

13 July 2019

9:00 AM

13 July 2019

9:00 AM

I agree with James Joyce on the spelling ballocks. The Liberal Democrats made their MEPs wear T-shirts printed with ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ to the European parliament. But ballocks are to balls what hillocks are to hills.

An old word, it appears in a manuscript glossary from the early 10th century. To spell it bollocks is like spelling bastard as bastid, to which many walls bear witness.

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