Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
I am grateful to a close friend, another man with an eye for grievous offences against the English language, for pointing out the following ghastliness: “Paul Smith wardrobes….” I shall spare the poor celebrity recipient of Smith’s tender sartorial mercies and not name him, but in the canon of nouns being transformed into verbs, this is right up there and makes “headquartered” look almost benign. Mind you, if the celebrity can’t dress himself, I suppose he deserves everything that’s coming his way. It did remind me though of one the great descriptions offered by one of our better parliamentary sketch writers, who described John Prescott as “looking like an angry wardrobe in a suit”. Absolutely on the money.
I fear that we are becoming inured to people who appear on news programmes who begin their responses to questions with “So…”. I confess that such a verbal infelicity almost washes over me now, so ubiquitous has it become. But I believe I have been witness to an altogether more unpleasant and reprehensible form of response. Recently on Channel 4 News, a spokesperson for Friends of the Earth kicked off almost every answer with “I mean…”. Once I suppose you could have allowed, but after the fifth or sixth time… No, I fear it’s off to a correctional centre for radical re-education until “I mean” has been expunged from their lexicon.
Britain’s woodlands are a great treasure and the more of them the merrier. Countryfile likes them too. Yet, last week, when discussing our woods, the presenter announced a new breed to me – “vintage trees”. Until now, I have been more than content with “ancient trees” to describe venerable examples. But vintage? Like cars and clothes? I think said presenter deserves a severe case of Dutch elm disease in the lower branches.
• Jonathan Bouquet is an Observer columnist
