The not-so-sweet roots of ‘nice’
‘That’s nice,’ said my husband, taking a Nice biscuit with his coffee. It was his little joke. The biscuit is…
The strangeness of station names
In Kyiv they have voted to changethe names of some metro stations. Heroes of the Dnieper is to become Heroes…
Why nothing ever comes ‘for free’
‘It’s not as nice as it looks,’ said my husband, not leaving time to look it in the mouth before…
Why disgraced MPs head for the Chiltern Hundreds
I saw in last week’s Spectatorthat the tractor MP had applied for the stewardship of the Manor of Northstead. After…
Are we living in a new pornocracy?
Are we living in a new pornocracy? The first one spanned six decades of the 10th century, during which there…
The wonder of the Metaphor Map
‘What’s that?’ asked my husband, looking at my laptop. ‘Fibonacci fossilised?’ His question made no sense, but I saw what…
The linguistic ingredients of ‘salmagundi’
‘It makes me hungry,’ said my husband when I mentioned the word salmagundi. That is his reaction to many words.…
The Aesopian language of algospeak
To evade algorithms that hunt down forbidden words, users of platforms like TikTok employ cryptic synonyms. So deadbecomes unalive, and…
What’s the right way to pronounce ‘gif’?
The man who invented gifs, Stephen Wilhite, has died, aged 74. Controversy survives him – over how to pronounce the…
When did brothers and sisters become ‘siblings’?
I never cared much for the word sibling, though I hardly knew why. The reason must be that it was…
How do you pronounce ‘Cirencester’ and ‘Marylebone’?
‘Half! Half! Half!’ exclaimed my husband like a performing sea lion. Not that sea lions perform any more, but you…
The ancient origins of ‘doomscrolling’
In 2019, Boris Johnson hit out at ‘the doomsters and the gloomsters’. I was surprised then to find that the…
Why does everything ‘embolden’ Putin?
The most emboldened man on earth must be Vladimir Putin. Everything seems to embolden him. Treating Russia as a pariah…
The complicated business of swearing in Ukrainian
‘This will interest you,’ said my husband, looking up from the smeared screen of his telephone. For once he was…
How 'like' lost its way
A strange crisis has befallen like. It had long been an object of obloquy and vilification in two functions. The…
Where’s the ‘mystery’ in mystery plays?
In The Archers, Ambridge put on its own set of mystery plays dramatising the Nativity and Passion. BBC Radio 4…
When did ‘pikey’ become offensive?
A policeman sent a colleague who was house-sitting for him a WhatsApp message: ‘Keep the pikeys out.’ He was sacked…
What does ice cream have to do with ‘late capitalism’?
‘More to my taste is Trockenbeerenkapitalismus,’ said my husband with an intonation that indicated a joke. The joke was a…
What’s so funny about ‘helpmeet’?
‘What’s so funny?’ asked my husband, accusingly, as I made an amused noise while relaxing with a copy of the…
Is the Duke of York’s title really ‘untenable’?
‘Nurse! The tenaculum!’ exclaimed my husband in the manner of James Robertson Justice playing the surgeon Sir Lancelot Spratt. I’m…
The elementary misuse of ‘alumni’
My husband is forever being sent magazines from his Oxford college inviting him to give it money. I suggest he…
Backlash
‘Lashings of ginger beer?’ asked my husband when I mentioned backlash. He thought the phrase came from Enid Blyton, though…
What do Millwall supporters and internet alt-righters have in common?
My grown-up friends don’t use based in its new slangy sense, so I asked Veronica (whom I still think of…
The six ways to pronounce ‘Omicron’
‘There once was a curate of Kew, / Who kept a young cat in a pew,’ began my husband when…
