Language
How to decode adspeak
The National Galleries of Scotland is singular. In its public pronouncements its pronouns are it and its. Fair enough. Though…
Being asked to ‘bear with’ is unbearable
‘Bear with me,’ said my husband on the phone and then let out a loud roar. It was intended to…
Are you ready for the ‘Genny Lex’?
‘It sounds like Polari to me,’ said my husband, who can remember Julian and Sandy (Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams)…
The myth of the global majority
‘You make the cotton easy to pick, Mame,’ sang my husband with execrable delivery. ‘No,’ I said, ‘You can’t sing…
Can you ‘go gangbusters’?
‘Is it anything to do with cockle-picking?’ asked my husband, confident he was on the right track. Naturally he wasn’t.…
Do sparks really fly?
‘Sparks,’ said my husband, after a short pause. I had asked him what one could spark. His answer was true…
Can MPs really defect?
‘He did it years before William Donaldson did The Henry Root Letters,’ said my husband querulously, as though I had…
Where does ‘stuff’ come from?
Pelham, the hero of the novel of the same name (which came out in 1828, the first year of The…
Amol Rajan is right to change his ways on ‘aitch’
My husband thought it brave and manly of the BBC’s Amol Rajan to resolve publicly to change his pronunciation of…
We ought to banish more words
Why do people say: ‘You might very well think that; I couldn’t possibly comment’? Are they using it as they…
When is a Lord not a Lord?
The Financial Times seeks applicants for the Sir Samuel Brittan fellowship. Announcing this, the paper refers to him as Sir…
How I ran away to Italy
A quarter of a century ago I somehow managed to get out of Paris where I had haunted a cheap…
The handmade suit I’ll never wear
Someone somewhere must surely have calculated that Bangkok has more doctors and tailors per capita than anywhere on Earth. These…
