I SURRENDER!

Constant readers of this blog will know that I have conducted a long campaign to protect the English language from decay. I should like to report that there has been some improvement in usage generally. But clearly this is not so - the reverse is true. Despite my protestations, and those of even more distinguished academics, the viruses seem to be increasingly well embedded; beyond hope now, I think, of eradication.

On radio and television speakers of education and culture seem not to notice that they are using vulgarisms such as (my own favourite targets) CONtractors: PROtesters: kilOMeters: REEsearch: WestMINNster.....

As for other sloppy pronunciations, the letter t seems doomed to eradication. Americans. of course, pronounce it as d, as in the wader poured the wine, but even that is better than the glottal stop, as in bread and bu''er, or mili'ary. Final t has become silent already - Christmas presen'. This gives rise to the fascinating thought that the word knight is destined to become the first in the English language to have more silent than pronounced letters.

Incidentally, the protests at the proposed closure of libraries formed part of a necessary and urgent campaign, but one can't help feeling relieved that the media are now free of constant references to libaries - especially during Febuary.

And so it goes on; a constant blurring and mumbling of language. Sam Johnson laid it down that dictionaries should reflect the language as it was really used, rather than dictate, but surely he was referring to the use of educated men. Dictionaries now scoop up any old rubbish and give it the authority of print. It's a long time, for example, since they gave up defending the valuable distinction between imply and infer; so muddled thought is reinforced.

The time has come for all old codgers to retreat into their ivory castles, and meditate on why they prefer to write an historian rather than a historian. 'But nobody says an horse!' - precisely; and if you didn't have tin ears you could hear why.