Grammar
What do we really mean by the ‘language’ of animals?
The reality of animal communication (or, more precisely, our belief in that reality) is a fact underwritten not by science…
An ‘I’ for a ‘my’: why we’re terrified of getting our grammar wrong
Jonathan Agnew recently described off-the-record interviews as those where you agree that it’s ‘between you and I’. Last month, Jess…
Jacob Rees-Mogg: I’m prejudiced against the Oxford comma
It is rare that losing a day at Lord’s for a Test match is welcome. I had expected to be…
Are the Dead Ringers audience told to laugh?
Nine on a Thursday morning is University Hour for those of us who don’t commute to an office every day.…
The real reason people say ‘I text him’ instead of ‘I texted’ him
Martin Allen has written with a very interesting question. It follows on from his initial query, which is why people…
It’s thought that counts when it comes to good prose
This is a sentence. As is this — not an exceptionally beautiful one, but a sentence all the same, just…
Why mutilate a perfectly good pronoun?
‘I’m just going to pop yourself on hold,’ said the girl from the online shopping firm who was trying to…
Similar to (as opposed to like, as with, such as)
I’m often annoyed by like being misused in different ways. (In place of as, for example: ‘Like I expected, he was…
Why I won’t see The Darkest Hour
The BBC programme The Coronation, on Sunday evening, was extremely interesting, principally, of course, because of the Queen’s appearance on…
The phrase that is almost universally misused
Writing about Meghan Markle and the Duchess of Cambridge in the Sunday Times, India Knight wrote: ‘I can’t help but…
Include me out of this grammatical atrocity
Just as, in writing, many people use an exclamation mark to indicate that they have made a joke, so there…
Mind your language . . . on commit
My husband struck out with his stick at an advertisement in the street that said: ‘Commit to winter.’ He doesn’t…
Letters: The Church of England should apologise for abuse accusations
The C of E should apologise Sir: Peter Hitchens’s article on the allegations against the late Bishop Bell is a…
Letters: Nicholas Serota answers Toby Young on arts teaching
The power of creativity Sir: A rounded education should encourage creativity as well as maths, English, science and history if…
N.M. Gwynne’s diary: Old names worth dropping
As I get older (and my 74th birthday is now close), I get deeper and deeper into nostalgia. I do…
Why would Jeremy Corbyn want to be credible when he can be incredible?
In a wonderfully dry manual of theology on my husband’s bookshelves, written in Latin and printed in Naples in the…
In defence of Michael Gove’s grammar guide
Few things are more likely to provoke the disapproval of the bien-pensant left than criticising someone’s grammar. The very idea…
The new Fowler still won’t grasp the nettle on ‘they’
I’ve been having a lovely time splashing about in the new Fowler. It has been revised by Jeremy Butterfield, an…
How ‘data’ became like ‘butter’
Someone on Radio 4 said she had heard about the sexism of Grand Theft Auto on ‘Women’s Hour’. It is…
How the Romans taught Latin (N.M. Gwynne would not approve)
Barely a week passes without someone complaining about the teaching of English or foreign languages, usually because it involves too…
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…
