Why would a Danish queen say 'basta'?
My husband heard me in the kitchen exclaim: ‘What would I do without you?’ He curiously imagined I was referring…
Square meals didn't start in Nelson's navy – but you could get one in a gold-rush town
I never dare go with my husband to any restaurant that uses square plates or he will play up the…
The sinister new meaning of ‘support’
When I asked my husband why paramedical professions were given to remaking the language in strange ways, he replied in…
‘Basta’ must be the Queen’s English — a Queen used it
My chickens do not usually come home to roost so rapidly. Only a fortnight ago I wrote that ‘some people use…
How DO you pronounce 'Marylebone'?
‘Take a trip to Marylebone station,’ chanted my husband. ‘Do not pass Go. Do not collect £200.’ I had been…
What the French now mean when they say ‘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,…
Why –y? The evolution of a suffix
Hitler was ‘dark, shouty, moustachioed’ in Churchill’s eyes, or rather, that was Jonathan Rose’s view of how Churchill saw Hitler,…
Dot Wordsworth: What is an astel?
Dear old Ian Hislop was pottering around North Petherton, Somerset, on television, to talk about the Alfred Jewel, found nearby…
What's in a universe?
‘So there are lots of universes besides ours,’ the ancient atomists concluded, in the brief account by Peter Jones (Ancient…
Ping – a silly word with a heroic history
In the search for the remains of flight MH370, a pulse signal was detected beneath the ocean. The BBC called…
Why did we ever spell jail gaol?
‘Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect £200.’ said the Community Chest card…
When did we stop ‘tossing’ coins?
What kind of scientists do school inspectors not need to be? ‘Inspectors don’t need to be rocket scientists.’ For what…
When Google can't help you
‘Ask your telephone,’ said my husband satirically when I made an innocent enquiry on a point of fact. My telephone…
How 'de-escalate' escalated
‘What we want to see,’ David Cameron said last week, ‘is a de-escalation.’ Or, as the Tanaiste of Ireland put…
Very bad poems on the Underground
My husband was surprised by quite a bit when we travelled by Underground in London the other day. Although he…
Why does everything suddenly need 'resilience'?
They were talking on the wireless about Brazilians in the flooded areas, or so I thought. Once the kettle had…
When Scotland goes, will England return?
Who, my husband asked, expects every man will do his duty? He was responding to the interesting and important question…
A learned poet's mystifying mistakes
I enjoy Poetry Please, but was shouting mildly at the wireless the other day when a northern woman poet was…
Lumpen’s journey from Marxism to nonsense
A publisher, Kevin Mayhew, has written to The Tablet, which is not a computer journal but a weekly magazine of…
Big changes in little words
I managed to grab the TLS last week before my husband stuffed it in his overcoat pocket and lost it…
Challenging 'challenging'
‘Pistols at dawn,’ said my husband, flapping a pair of Marigold rubber gloves from the other side of the kitchen. ‘I don’t…
Where did ‘No justice, no peace’ come from?
The chant No justice, no peace by supporters of Mark Duggan, the drug gangster shot dead by police in 2011,…
Dot Wordsworth: How online shopping is changing English
How do you play the lottery? The National Lottery website has a handy guide. Step No. 1 is: ‘Go into…
Dot Wordsworth: Lost in England? Ask for a bread roll
If Manchester University is to be believed, last year saw a creeping advance of effete southern language into the gritty…
Why twerking sounds so stupid
The Widow Twankey first appeared on stage in 1861. At that time daily papers listed on Boxing Day dozens of novelty-stuffed…
