WEDNESDAY 7 NOVEMBER 2007

THIS BLOG
Thanks for all the advice - here and at the BBC - about how to access this blog. I think we’ve got the hang of it now. Even Gilly in Meadowfield seems to have mastered it!

BBC ENGLISH
The BBC has long been held up as a bastion (what exactly IS a ‘bastion’?) of good-quality English; good grammar, faultless pronunciation and - of course - the right word in the right place. So it comes as quite a shock to learn that there are folk who think it’s no such thing. And it’s even more shocking to have to agree with them - at least partly.
Many people assume that I’m the sort of finicky pedant who gets upset at any new word, or old word ‘misused’. But I don’t. Well, not really. The meanings of words have been changing ceaselessly and steadily for centuries. Silly once meant ‘blessed by God’, nice used to mean ‘dainty’, meat was anything you ate (not just meat) and a deer could be any animal at all. So it ill behoves us (if that’s the right way to put it) to complain about the same process happening now. Who cares if replica means - strictly speaking - an exact copy rather than just a model or reproduction?
Needless to say, I do have bees in my bonnet about some usages. For some reason, I get narked whenever I hear decimate used to mean ‘almost wipe out’. It means ‘reduce by 10%’. And the BBC is almost solely responsible for the total misuse of literally to mean its exact opposite. Sports commentators are always saying stuff like ‘the players have literally built a wall around the penalty area’ when this is precisely what they have not done.
Anyway, let’s face it. Some new words are delightful. Prequel and prevenge encapsulate complex ideas in single words and I’m ashamed to say that I couldn’t manage without cool and OK. OK? Cool.
Everyone gets ‘airiated’ (as my nana used to say) about certain words. Claire texted the programme to say she explodes in fury whenever she hears lend and borrow confused. Is this confusion a local thing?
It would be good to hear about your least favourite language innovation or mistake. And are the BBC’s standards really falling?

SCOTLAND V ENGLAND
The on-air comparison I made between our two nations after 8 years of the Scottish Parliament generated a fiery response, ranging from ‘let’s all move to Scotland NOW’ to ‘the Scots can only afford to do all this because the English subsidise them’. Is that true?

KNOW YOUR NORTH-EAST
Thanks for all the information you’ve sent me about the world’s first ever dog-show, held in Newcastle in 1859.
Today’s question is about the location of the two preserved hermit’s cells in the north-east. Do you know where they are?

NIGHTSHIFT SHOWSTOPPER
Windmills Of Your Mind was written and performed by Noel Harrison as the theme song of The Thomas Crown Affair, although there’s no obvious link between song and film that I can see. Lovely song, though. And it's kept Noel in royalty-fed comfort ever since.

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.