“. . . here will be an old abusing of God’s patience and the king’s English.” The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I Scene IV

A reminder . . . The next Stroppy Git Award for Meaningless Drivel (aka The Stroppy) will be awarded on 17 January 2019. Nominations will close at 2359 UTC/GMT on Sunday 13 January.

The English language is under unrelenting attack from those whose ends are served by ambiguity and the re-purposing of words – and from an army of the ignorant and lazy, it must be said. The word ‘whom’ has all but disappeared. ‘I’ and ‘me’ are becoming interchangeable. ‘Phenomena’ and ‘bacteria’ are following ‘data’ on a slide towards singularity as their parents ‘phenomenon‘ and ‘bacterium’ look on helplessly, aghast at the prospect of their own demise.

The award each January of The Stroppy is an attempt to use public ridicule as a weapon in defence of linguistic rigour. Feel free to join this noble cause by submitting a nomination.