The teacher rang the doorbell. “I’d like to see your mother, please,” she said when Susie opened the door. “She ain’t ‘ere miss,” Susie replied. “Why, Susie, where’s your grammar?” asked the teacher. “She ain’t ‘ere neither miss,” said Susie. A study of work turned in by final-year students at Imperial College, London – one [...]
In his most recent article, John Scholes complains that, “There must be hundreds of quotation sites. Almost none of them give any kind of reference. How on earth do they know that the quotations are accurate? What on earth is the point in compiling a site of quotations without the sources?” That is a very [...]
The perils of what? You could live a long and useful life without ever coming across the verb “to bloviate” and its noun “bloviation”, if you were not American and kept well away from the blogosphere. Sorry about that last word, too, but it is just so neat and compact. I am sure Jonathan Miller [...]
I read George Orwell’s unforgettable novel “1984″ during an enforced stay in the College sickroom at the age of about 14. It made an indelible impression on my young mind – all the more so because of my relatively privileged and trouble-free childhood. My parents had occasionally told me, laconically and without self-pity, about the [...]
We have probably all heard of someone, already deeply in debt, who decides that, instead of starting the slow, painful task of repayment, it would be better to use up their last remaining credit by going on holiday. Clearly irrational behaviour – unless you know of an impending financial crash – but all too human. [...]
