And another thing | 5 March 2008

There are certain words, carrying overtones of money and privilege, which stir up strong emotions. One is ‘private income’. ‘What’s held me back,’ says Uncle Giles in The Music of Time, ‘is that I’ve never had a private income.’ J.B. Priestley used to say, disdainfully, ‘He’s got a private income voice.’ There were various euphemisms used by the squeamish to whom talking about money was indelicate. About 1870, someone noting a list of clergymen at Lambeth Palace inquired what was the significance of the letters ‘W.H.M.’ after the names of some of them. He was told they stood for ‘wife has means’. Another such emotive phrase is ‘expense account’. I remember when I was first given an official expense account, and how proud I felt: I had arrived. Now such things are discredited, regarded as vaguely dishonourable, though doubtless continuing in one form or another. The old accountant at Granada TV in Manchester, very sharp with expenses claims, used to say: ‘There’s no expense accounts in Heaven, tha’ knowst,’ adding: ‘Or in Hell, neither, lad.’