SIR – Had my eight-year-old daughter not understood instructions using the concepts of clockwise and anticlockwise, she would still now be stuck in a toilet in Austria.
Valerie Atkin
Sheffield
Thyme servers
SIR – Driving past Ford prison today I saw that the inmates have renamed their farm shop. It’s now called “Serving Thyme”.
Philip Moger
East Preston, West Sussex
SIR – The former wife of a football coach who posted a full English breakfast through his letterbox was sentenced to a 12-month community order. She should do porridge.
R. Allan Reese
Dorchester, Dorset
SIR – You report on a barrister who is suing his firm over a spanking session with a colleague on office premises. He was apparently suspended some months after the incident and with no trace of irony complained to a legal website about “disciplinary proceedings” brought against him.
No doubt he enjoyed them.
Ian Prideaux
London SW4
Carillion regardless
SIR – Which bright spark thought it was a good idea to use a corruption of “carrion” and “ill” as the name of a public company?
John Curran
Bristol
SIR – I was very sorry to hear of the demise of that national chain of stores. I shall now always think of it as “Toysaurus”.
Jeremy Douglas-Jones
Swansea
Embarrassing emphases
SIR – Many people complain that they have been in some way harassed – with the accent on the second syllable. None of them appear to be embarrassed (with the accent on the third syllable) by so doing.
I find this strange. I also think that Michael Crawford, playing Cornelius Hackl in the film Hello, Dolly!, has a lot to answer for.
Terry Whiting
Lincoln
SIR – I suggest the re-emergence of the word unbecoming as an alternative to inappropriate. This charming word brings to mind the film Conduct Unbecoming. Both the storyline and the title would be most pertinent in today’s age of #MeToo.
Jonathan Dart
Sherborne, Dorset
SIR – If Harvey Weinstine pronounces his name Winesteen, does that mean that German beer is now served in a steen? And what about Alfred Einstine?
I just wish someone would make a definitive ruling on this because I’m getting awfully confused.
Robert Paterson
Speen, Berkshire
SIR – Pronunciation is a useful means of differentiating between the inhabitants of this modest seaside town. Those who say Seaford are intelligent locals; those who say Seaford are ignorant invaders.
Diana Crook
Seaford, East Sussex
SIR – Can we add staycation to the growing list of language abominations?
Geoff Pursglove
Snarestone, Leicestershire
Sweet talk
SIR – A Virgin Trains passenger has complained about being addressed by staff as “Honey”. She’d better stay clear of Devon. During a recent telephone conversation with the proprietrix of a Dartmouth pet shop, I was addressed as “My lover”.
I was delighted.
George S. Pearson
Southsea, Hampshire
SIR – Some time ago my elder brother came to assist me in a loft clearing job. He had borrowed a Ford Mondeo for the task. We made regular visits to the council tip. I was driving my Mercedes.
During our second of many visits we realised that I was addressed as Governor and he as Mate.
Anthony Scouller
Banstead, Surrey
SIR – In my 79th year I am frequently patronised as “love”. I have found that my reply, “Bless you my child”, makes a point, and at the same I accept the well-meant greeting.
Revd Keith Horsfall
Swaffham, Norfolk
SIR – I have a fairly deep voice and am frequently perceived to be a man when on the phone, usually getting called Sir.
On saying to one man, “It is Madam, actually”, the reply was, “Sorry, love”.
Grrrrr.
Jan Reeks
Gloucester
Hello, boys (and girls)
SIR – Given that one can now be censured for “misgendering” an individual, can I now complain when, in a group of both men and women, I am greeted with the term, “Hello guys”?
Jennifer Franklin
Pontefract, West Yorkshire
SIR – Celia Walden rightly baulks at the Shadow Chancellor’s use of the term “fisherpeople”. I wonder when, so as not to cause offence, Mr McDonnell will refer to “the taxperson”.
Tim Matthews
London N6
SIR – It’s a good job the Apostle Peter didn’t take Jesus literally when told he’d been made “a fisher of men”, otherwise no women would have been saved for us (saved) chaps.
J. Eric Nolan
Wilpshire, Lancashire
SIR – You report that Oxford academics are asked to use writers’ first names, rather than initials, “to make it clearer which are female”.
How are they to cite George Sand and Evelyn Waugh?
Prof. Rennie McElroy
Carlops, Peeblesshire
SIR – If boys wearing skirts becomes the norm, isn’t there a very real danger that the expression “to de-bag” will disappear from the English language?
Jasper Archer
Stapleford, Wiltshire
SIR – With the need to adopt gender-neutral language, I am at a loss as to how, in future, I should state my name.
B.D. Chapman
Sidmouth, Devon
Nothing like a dame
SIR – With the publication of the New Year Honours List many of us are, once again, struck with the ridiculousness of this title of “Dame” and its connotation of pantomimes and Widow Twankey, while citizens of other countries use the word as a semi-derogatory term.
Any suggestions anyone?
David Gunn
Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire
SIR – One hundred years after suffrage, women should rebel against the repellent label “feisty”. It derives from the Middle English verb “to break wind”, which was so regularly applied to small dogs that “feist” became a term for a snappy lap-dog: dogs with flatulence were commonly believed to be more aggressive.
Caroline Moore
Etchingham, East Sussex
SIR – Your editorial today must have been written by a bloke because it showed a shocking lack of precision concerning the female pudenda.
“Vulvas?” Even with my O-level Latin, failed three times, I know it should be vulvae.
It all reminded me of that A.P. Herbert poem:
That part of a woman’s anatomy
That most appeals to Man’s depravity
Is constructed with considerable care
And what appears to be a common little cavity
Is really an elaborate affair.
I could go on but don’t want to frighten old brigadiers over their brekkie.
Rosemary Foster
Angmering, West Sussex
Teaching the one R
SIR – I’ll tell you why we need grammar schools. This morning Radio 4 talked to two teachers, one of whom announced: “Our school has children between eleven to sixteen; I teach them English.”
Brenda Frisby
Cottesmore, Rutland
SIR – We don’t need any weird “reading revolution”; just leave the cornflakes packet on the breakfast table. I was quite fluent in the early 1930s after a year or two of Post Toasties.
Tim Topps
Oxford
SIR – My father was called “cheerfully incompetent” in a report by one of his teachers. He became a highly successful corporate finance director for Midland Bank and I am pleased to say that he remained cheerful throughout his career.
Pauline Lucas
Southend-on-Sea, Essex
SIR
– I well remember one master writing in my end of year report, “John remains as incorrigible and enigmatic as ever.”
At the time he was, thankfully, blissfully unaware that I had recently seduced his daughter.
J.W.
Driffield, East Yorkshire
SIR – If the handwriting of the nation’s children is as bad as they say it is, there should be no problem filling all the vacant NHS medical posts when they graduate.
David J. Hartshorn
Badby, Northamptonshire
Tricky pill to swallow
SIR – I have sometimes suspected that the naming of new, invariably polysyllabic, drugs is achieved by selecting quantities of consonants and vowels more or less at random.
The latest among these, Canakinumab, becomes infinitely more memorable if read backwards.
Dr Lawrence Green
Langley, Warwickshire
SIR – The failure of the contraceptive pill among first-time users is probably a direct result of the BBC’s repeated references to the aural contraceptive. Dangerous too, as pills are difficult to remove from the ear.
Malcolm Shifrin
Leatherhead, Surrey
SIR – In the 1970s my wife was working on an ENT ward where a trainee nurse was told to give a patient two suppositories. A little later these were removed from the patient’s ears and popped into the correct orifice with better results.
Robert Hurlow FRCS
Marnhull, Dorset
SIR – If “spotted dick” is to be relegated to being solely a dermatological entity, must “cock-a-leekie”, likewise, become a term confined entirely to urological practice?
David Abell
Portsmouth
SIR – When I was a publican I always told my patients that I had the best surgery in the village.
Prescriptions were relatively inexpensive and 95 per cent of people went away happier than when they arrived.
David Smith
Cudworth, Somerset
Money for nothing
SIR – I am constantly reading signs on “holes in the wall” that offer “free cash” – and yet when I use them to withdraw cash my bank account gets debited.
Surely this is a case of blatant misrepresentation?
Linda Lewin
Teddington, Middlesex
SIR – A small van passed me yesterday bearing the legend: “Making tomorrow a better place”. I think they’ll need a bigger vehicle.
Tim Nicholson
Cranbrook, Kent
SIR – Since retiring I have lived very happily in a bungalow. Or at least I thought I had. A local estate agent is offering a dwelling very similar to mine which is described as a “single-storey house”.
I await with interest the appearance of a two-storey bungalow.
D. Hodgkiss
Cranleigh, Surrey
SIR – I was intrigued by the report suggesting that the terms “drug addict” and “junkie” should be replaced by a reference to the person having a “heroin use disorder”.
I’m wondering whether burglars will be described as someone having a “property ownership confusion disorder”.
Malcolm Allsop
Wroxham, Norfolk
War of words
SIR – I should have more faith in the sombre warnings of General Sir Nick Carter if he could accurately pronounce the word nuclear.
Ged Martin
Youghal, County Cork, Ireland
SIR – Now that the letter H is pronounced Haitch, should we refer to Y as Yigh?
James Stevenson
Kingsbridge, Devon
SIR – Let’s just give in and agree. The second month of the year is Febry.
Dr P.E. Pears
Coleshill, Warwickshire
SIR – Is it an Americanism to refer to a stroke in a sentence as a slash?
In my book, the latter is a basic bodily function.
Nevill Swanson
Worcester
SIR – The late Jim Bowen may have uttered 43 smashin’s in half an hour, but he is put in the shade by a young American man I once overheard in the pub. He managed to squeeze the word like into a conversation 15 times in just 20 seconds.
Seán Bellew
London W12
SIR – How does one explain to someone trying to learn the English language that, after cutting a tree down, we then cut it up?
Chris Cansdale
Latimer, Buckinghamshire
SIR – Many people seem to be filling out forms these days. Whatever happened to filling in?
Peter McPherson
Merriott, Somerset
SIR – The words floor and ground seem to have become interchangeable. Should I have the misfortune to fall over, the floor would be a preferable surface as it may be carpeted.
Valerie Hogg
Glasgow
SIR – As well as changes in the meaning of some English words, I’ve noticed new meanings for acronyms. STD was Subscriber Trunk Dialling; PMT Potteries Motor Traction (a large ’bus company); and AI was Artificial Insemination.
Arnold Burston
Rolleston on Dove, Staffordshire
SIR – Good luck to Velcro with their beautifully polite attempt to deter others from using their brand name as a generic. Hoover and Biro didn’t have much luck.
Sandra Hawke
Andover, Hampshire
SIR – Woodbridge Town Council has announced new signage in an attempt to “badge our assets”.
I believe Adam and Eve did something similar with fig leaves.
Michael Hughes
Wickham Market, Suffolk
SIR – Surely everyone now realises there is no noun that cannot be verbed.
Emeritus Professor Geoff Moore
Millport, Ayrshire
SIR – I’m always proud when I have lettered in The Daily Telegraph.
Andrew Holgate
Poynton, Cheshire
Back to basics
SIR – Have I really just witnessed Fraser Nelson, one of the best political journalists in the country, using the term “revert back” in today’s edition? If he was quoting a Dutchman then he is forgiven.
Brian Wilson
Glasgow
SIR – I was sat at breakfast yesterday reading The Daily Telegraph and my wife was stood next to me.
We are both horrified by this popular abomination of the English language but have decided to join in just to annoy ourselves.
Mark Stephens
Hungerford, Berkshire
The two Ronnies
SIR – Who are the “two Rons” that the weather forecasters and newscasters at the BBC keep alluding to? Every day they keep mentioning “Later Ron” and “Earlier Ron”, but there is never a mention of who they are or where they reside.
Derek Partner
Chiddingfold, Surrey
SIR – We’re often told that snow and ice will be treacherous. How so? As far as I am aware, they owe allegiance to no one.
Andrew Blake
Shalbourne, Wiltshire
SIR – Scottish place names are quite wonderful things for faux swear words.
Following the weather forecast, having seen some of the lesser-known settlements throughout Scotland appearing on our screens, we are tempted from time to time to utter something about Socialist Fochabers, or that Ecclefechan Jeremy Corbyn (or Nicola Sturgeon).
However, we avoid using Unst, as it is simply too rude.
Andrew H.N. Gray
Edinburgh
Hello, this is the BBC
SIR – BBC Radio Four seems to have abandoned “Good morning/afternoon/evening” in favour of the gratuitously informal “Hello”.
They should never have got rid of dinner jackets.
Joseph B. Fox
Redhill, Surrey
SIR – Is there a competition to find the fastest-talking speaker on the BBC?
Joyce Whitfield
Wirral
SIR – According to the BBC, the police force has been replaced
by the pleece.
M. Hely
Banham, Norfolk
SIR – Has anyone else noticed the stealthy appearance of a new television channel called BBC Toe?
Paul Machin
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
SIR – Is anyone else irritated by being ordered to “relax” on Classic FM?
Dr Peter I. Vardy
Runcorn, Cheshire
SIR – I was amused to see on BBC Breakfast television this morning an interview with a Cromer fisherman wearing a T-shirt upon which was printed Aaaah – Soles. Fortunately this was not spotted by the BBC.
John Grandy
Bourton, Dorset
SIR – An enjoyable distraction at my gym is reading subtitles generated by speech recognition software. I have seen them identify leading politicians such as: “A mandible Macaroon”; “Ahmed-in-a-dinner-jacket”; and “Barack, a bomber”.
Antony Thomas
Esher, Surrey
SIR – On Wednesday’s BBC News “the Prime Minister’s top lieutenants” became “the Prime Minister’s topless tenants”.
Eugene Harkin
Bolton, Lancashire
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT?
They all play in a blue submarine
SIR – The picture of the submersible used to photograph the deeps of the ocean on Blue Planet does seem rather small. Just where do they put the orchestra that seems to accompany them everywhere?
Robert Ward
Loughborough, Leicestershire
Everyday story of intergalactic folk
SIR – I have just listened to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy followed by The Archers. I noticed no difference in the plot.
Cenydd Thomas
Brecon
SIR – Can anyone tell me why the producers of The Archers bother with an agricultural adviser? He must be exceedingly bored.
Must I Repeat Myself...? Page 8
