Language
‘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,…
Spectator letters: Interpreting Islam, and Spectator-reading thieves
Chapter and verse on Islam Sir: Irshad Manji’s generally very sensible article on ‘Reclaiming Islam’ (29 March) suggests using the…
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…
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…
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…
Warning: upspeak can wreck your career
Upspeak can damage your career prospects
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…
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: Is M&S really 'Magic & Sparkle'?
‘Believe in Magic & Sparkle,’ says the Marks & Spencer television Christmas advertisement. The phrase is meant to suggest the…
Dot Wordsworth's week in words: Did William Empson have the first clue what 'bare ruined choirs' meant?
I am shocked to find that William Empson, famous for his technique of close reading, was no good at reading…
Dot Wordsworth: We've been self-whipping since 1672
Isabel Hardman of this parish explained after last week’s government defeat that a deluded theory among the party leadership had…
Letters: GPs reply to J. Merion Thomas
Some doctors write Sir: Professor Meirion Thomas (‘Dangerous medicine’, 17 August) may be an excellent surgeon but he is uninformed…
After ‘literally’, is it time to start a Neighbourhood Watch for the OED?
There was outrage last week when it was found that the Oxford English Dictionary had listed one sense of literally…
Mind your language: Frack vs frag
‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a frack,’ replied my husband unwittily when I asked how he’d feel if shale…
Mind your language: The springs before the Arab Spring
Two hundred and forty-years ago next Tuesday, Thomas Gray was buried in his mother’s grave in Stoke Poges churchyard. In…
Mind your language: Who says there's a 'correct name' for the penis?
In a very rum letter to the Daily Telegraph, the Mother’s Union of all people joined with some other bodies…
Mind your language: How the Dreamliner got its name
‘Planes don’t run off batteries,’ declared my husband, his finger unerringly on the pulse of technology as ever. I had…
