Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 17 March 2007

I wonder how much of our hatred of certain words and phrases is really a hatred of people

issue 17 March 2007

I wonder how much of our hatred of certain words and phrases is really a hatred of people. My husband, no mean hater, is given to self-defeating outbursts in response to some triggers. I’ve known him slam down the telephone when the person at the other end says, ‘Bear with me,’ even though he has waited ages to get through in the first place.

I was pondering such hatred during the recent flash-flood of remarks about language on the Letters page of the Daily Telegraph. Many readers of that newspaper seem to hate the sinner more than the linguistic sin. So, some people reach for their revolvers every time they hear someone say haitch, instead of aitch.

It is, to be sure, a strange error, perhaps the result of hypercorrection (like saying, ‘between you and I’ instead of the correct ‘between you and me’).

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