Mr Iain Duncan Smith, with his calm, Japanese face, introduced an American note into his ‘unite or die’ speech last week. He quoted Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), or almost did, when he said, ‘We must hang together or we shall hang apart.’ People were uncharacteristically kind in not mentioning that the joke does not work like that. Franklin was reported to have said, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, ‘We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.’
Talking of errors, Mrs David Beckham has been taking legal action against Peterborough football club for using the word Posh commercially. Peterborough has had it as its nickname for 80 years, it says; Mrs Beckham has only borne it since she joined the Spice Girls.
The silly BBC repeated the etymology of posh as the acronym for ‘Port Out, Starboard Home’, presumed to be a kind of steamer ticket for passengers from Suez to Aden, India-bound, and back.
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