The family of Captain Tom Moore, the old soldier who walked to raise money during the lockdowns you’ll recall, have been building a home extension
In the comments section of an online newspaper report about this, someone claimed: “Yes, and it’s got a spar in it too”.
Now I doubt there was a Spar store included in the extension, although it would be handy for groceries. There might well have been spars, stout pieces of wood useful to builders.
But it was really someone who couldn’t spell “spa”.
I was, even in this poor English skills day and error-ridden age, surprised that anyone could misspell spa. That’s quite an elevated level of inability to spell. The writer will be a contender for the GB Olympic Bad Spelling first XI.
Several things have annoyed me recently, including a quote from a politician about new defence secretary Grant Shapps: “He is a very articulated man,” it was claimed. I’m sure he is.
A football team was described as having been beaten by shear effort. They must have entered a sheep-clipping tournament by mistake.
Of another young footballer it was said: “His legs are starting to grow into his body.” Having his legs attached to his body will surely improve his overall play.
Fare game is possibly a type of bingo played by bus conductors. There is no such thing as a plastic stick. Day light robbery is, I imagine, quite illuminating.
There is no need to say “close proximity”. The definition of proximity is: “nearness, closeness”.
I’d say (you may disagree) you have to “mull over” something. You can’t just mull it.
You do not learn off people, you learn from them.
And people go “above and beyond”. But above and beyond what? It used to be “above and beyond the call of duty” and didn’t need shortened.
The idiom is “a stone’s throw”, not a stonethrow. “It’s a stonethrow distance” is incorrect.
Devine inspiration is presumably an imitation of Sydney.
In a newspaper, I learned that hygiene inspectors visiting a takeaway restaurant found “unacceptable levels of cleanliness”. It’s right, but could have done with a rewrite.
Another newspaper spoke of “reining champions” and then promised to “get down to brass tax”. I wasn’t surprised, everything is taxed nowadays.
Lastly, I recently came across the word “happenchance”. I’d never heard of this. I’d use “happenstance”. But, to my amazement, according to online dictionaries happenchance is cited as British English whereas happenstance is favoured in the United States of amusing spellings.
I disagree with this. I’ve never seen “happenchance” used in this country. Have you?
Word of the week
Epicrisis (noun)
An evaluation, critical study, or summing up. EG: “Any epicrisis of the above column might conclude the author is a pernickety old fusspot. And further, ‘epicrisis’ is a word ripe to be hijacked to mean a really really really bad crisis!”
Read the latest Oh my word! every Saturday in The Courier. Contact me at sfinan@dctmedia.co.uk
