Mind your language
Stand
‘Boris Johnson broke cover yesterday to declare that he will run for parliament,’ the Times reported last week. The Mirror…
Pre-diabetes
‘Pre-diabetes is an artificial category with virtually zero clinical relevance,’ said an American professor in the Times. A friend of…
Mrs
I don’t much care for being called Wordsworth. Oh, the name is rather distinguished, though it came from my husband,…
Autonomy
My husband is constantly amused by talk of patient autonomy — for people who want to have a limb lopped…
Toe-rag
‘I am glad to say that I have never seen a toe-rag,’ said my husband, assuming, as unconvincingly as one…
Cost of living
Labour’s appeal to the cost of living has a rather old-fashioned feel to it: as if the whole nation still…
Diffuse
It’s funny how people hardly know what they are saying. I read recently of diplomats going to Riyadh ‘to diffuse…
Isis
‘This’ll make you laugh,’ said my husband, looking up from the Daily Telegraph. For once he was right. It was…
Execute
During the sudden advances of ISIS in Iraq, one visual image stood for their brutality. As the Daily Mail reported…
Ombre
My husband heard me in the kitchen exclaim: ‘What would I do without you?’ He curiously imagined I was referring…
Square meals
I never dare go with my husband to any restaurant that uses square plates or he will play up the…
Support
When I asked my husband why paramedical professions were given to remaking the language in strange ways, he replied in…
Basta
My chickens do not usually come home to roost so rapidly. Only a fortnight ago I wrote that ‘some people use…
Marylebone
‘Take a trip to Marylebone station,’ chanted my husband. ‘Do not pass Go. Do not collect £200.’ I had been…
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,…
Shouty
Hitler was ‘dark, shouty, moustachioed’ in Churchill’s eyes, or rather, that was Jonathan Rose’s view of how Churchill saw Hitler,…
Astel
Dear old Ian Hislop was pottering around North Petherton, Somerset, on television, to talk about the Alfred Jewel, found nearby…
Multiverse
‘So there are lots of universes besides ours,’ the ancient atomists concluded, in the brief account by Peter Jones (Ancient…
Ping
In the search for the remains of flight MH370, a pulse signal was detected beneath the ocean. The BBC called…
Jail
‘Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect £200.’ said the Community Chest card…
Flip
What kind of scientists do school inspectors not need to be? ‘Inspectors don’t need to be rocket scientists.’ For what…
Mandorla
‘Ask your telephone,’ said my husband satirically when I made an innocent enquiry on a point of fact. My telephone…
De-escalate
‘What we want to see,’ David Cameron said last week, ‘is a de-escalation.’ Or, as the Tanaiste of Ireland put…
McBess
My husband was surprised by quite a bit when we travelled by Underground in London the other day. Although he…
Resilience
They were talking on the wireless about Brazilians in the flooded areas, or so I thought. Once the kettle had…
