Mind your language

Colonel Gaddafi was making something of a point when he kept referring to the Western coalition against him as crusaders. It harked back to  President George Bush’s words five days after the outrage of September 11, 2001: ‘This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while.’ He was immediately jumped on, not

I asked Veronica how to pronounce LOL. She is of an age to know, for this abbreviation is ubiquitous in emails and texts. ‘El-o-el,’ she said. So, orally it isn’t much of an abbreviation, though it performs better than www, which replaces three syllables, world wide web, with nine syllables. Next week LOL joins other

‘What,’ asked my husband, with a peculiarly annoying tone of archness in his voice, ‘is the highest kite that can fly?’ ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I replied. ‘What,’ asked my husband, with a peculiarly annoying tone of archness in his voice, ‘is the highest kite that can fly?’ ‘I don’t know what you

While thinking of socks for my husband, I sat up when I read a sentence in the Autobiography of the extraordinary Anne Murray. She, having helped disguise James Duke of York in a woman’s dress (‘very pretty in itt’), for him to escape the Roundheads in 1648, found that she herself had to escape the

Iain Duncan Smith said last week that he was going to ‘lift a million out of poverty’. Lifting is something of which people in poverty run a perennial risk, especially if they are children. It is as though they were a field of root crops. ‘Some potatoes in Lincolnshire are lifting well, others are below

How is it that, having said become instinct all their lives, people suddenly start to say go extinct? I use this as an example. I can understand the acquisition or disposal of a piece of slang, such as cool. It might have been possible for a young thing in the 1950s who looked on the

Charles Moore told of a headmaster (The Spectator’s Notes, 29 January) who found that no one knew the meaning of the proverb: ‘Handsome is as handsome does.’ I suppose the antique syntax baffled them. Charles Moore told of a headmaster (The Spectator’s Notes, 29 January) who found that no one knew the meaning of the

The Egyptian people, David Cameron said last week, have ‘legitimate grievances’. I can imagine a future historian of language examining the speeches of politicians to gauge the linguistic habits of the ruling class. Nothing could be more misleading. The Egyptian people, David Cameron said last week, have ‘legitimate grievances’. I can imagine a future historian

‘But we haven’t got a bed-post,’ said my husband captiously when I had shared a confidence between him, me and the bedpost. ‘But we haven’t got a bed-post,’ said my husband captiously when I had shared a confidence between him, me and the bedpost. I left the room to turn down the stock on the

U and non-U saw their birth in 1954, in volume 55 of Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. A.S.C. Ross’s ‘Linguistic Class-Indicators in Present-Day English’ was presented to the world in the same learned journal that later published the linguistic theories of Noam Chomsky, though much of the world waited in ignorance until 1956, when Ross’s ideas were collected by

Now that we are celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Authorised Version of the Bible, I wonder if we can dispense with the notion that it has greatly influenced the shape of the English language. Macaulay once claimed that if every other book perished, the Bible ‘would alone suffice to show the whole extent’ of

The government is thinking of making restaurants put on the menu the number of calories in dishes. The government is thinking of making restaurants put on the menu the number of calories in dishes. Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, spoke of an ‘obesogenic environment’. I thought he’d made up the word obesogenic. It’s a bastard formation, half-Latin

I’ve been having as much fun as Citizen Kane must have had on his first outing with Rosebud, for the Oxford English Dictionary has this week fitted a powerful engine of analysis into its online version. I’ve been having as much fun as Citizen Kane must have had on his first outing with Rosebud, for

The big news screen at Victoria Station said, ‘Colin Farrell to play British bad boy.’ In 2004 the headlines were, ‘Colin Farrell to play bad boy in US TV drama.’ Earlier this year he was apparently ‘retiring his bad-boy ways’. The big news screen at Victoria Station said, ‘Colin Farrell to play British bad boy.’

My husband’s temper noticeably improved when we had that BBC strike, when there were fewer irritants from nettle-beds such as Today. My husband’s temper noticeably improved when we had that BBC strike, when there were fewer irritants from nettle-beds such as Today. But he’s over it now, and cursing the smallest, most niggling annoyance yet

Benjamin Blayney is no celebrity, but he was responsible for what the Americans call the King James Bible, and we the Authorised Version. His work appeared in 1769, and almost the whole edition was consumed by a fire at the warehouse in Paternoster Row, London. Yet his is the Bible we know today. I know

‘I can’t abide stigmata,’ said my husband, not through aversion to St Francis of Assisi, but by way of joining in this week’s craze, provoked by the BBC, of nominating a pet hatred among pronunciations. ‘I can’t abide stigmata,’ said my husband, not through aversion to St Francis of Assisi, but by way of joining

John Hutton, before he settled down to the blameless task of reporting on public-sector pensions, was accused of writing poetry. He did not deny the practice but did reject the authorship of a verse about Gordon Brown, when he was still prime minister: ‘At Downing Street/ Upon the stair/ I met a man who wasn’t

The squeeze that the middle classes are enjoying in this frenzy of cuts and taxation is not what the middle classes once liked to mean by the word. The squeeze that the middle classes are enjoying in this frenzy of cuts and taxation is not what the middle classes once liked to mean by the word. In