The Pedant’s Revolt: In this joyously combative series, SIMON HEFFER goes to war on sloppy English. Be warned: You’ll either cheer or want to punch him

Speaking and writing correct English still matters — perhaps more so than ever because a very large number of people feel they were taught inadequately at school.

For better or worse, we live in a society where we may be judged not by how we sound — accents are irrelevant — but by how carefully we choose our words and how well we put a sentence together.

It is all very well to tell a young person that he (or she) can be ‘creative’ with the English language. However, if he applies for a job or for higher education, he is likely to be disadvantaged if he misuses words or mangles what he’s trying to say.



Speaking and writing correct English still matters ¿ perhaps more so than ever because a very large number of people feel they were taught inadequately at school says Dr Heffer

It would probably be impossible to record every act of violence done to the English language — but these common mistakes are at least a start ...

ABLE Only living beings are able. To say that ‘this key may be able to open the door’ is wrong. A man may be able to open the door using the key, or the key may unlock the door.

ACCESS is a noun and not a verb. ‘Can I access your website?’ is wrong: either say ‘can I gain access?’ or ‘can I see?’ If the access is literal rather than metaphorical, use ‘enter’: not ‘Can I access the premises?’ but ‘Can I enter the premises?’

ACQUIESCE does not mean to approve. It means to agree to do something with some reluctance. ‘Several ministers acquiesced in the Prime Minister’s plans to legalise same-sex marriage’ means that they supported him in order to preserve their careers, not because they agreed with the policy.

ADULTERY is strictly voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and another who is not his or her spouse. Technically speaking, when both parties are married (but not to each other) the act constitutes double adultery. Where both parties are unmarried, they can merely participate in fornication.

AGGRAVATE If one aggravates something, one makes it worse: ‘I have aggravated my bad back today by carrying things upstairs.’ The verb does not mean ‘to annoy’ or ‘to irritate’, which has become its slang usage in phrases such as ‘he really aggravated me’.

AKIMBO can apply only to arms, signifying hands on hips and elbows pointing outwards. Knees may point awkwardly, but they are not akimbo.

ALTERNATIVES There can only ever be two alternatives. If there are three or more, then they are ‘options’. In his otherwise superlative biography of General de Gaulle, Jonathan Fenby wrongly states: ‘Algeria would be invited to vote on a choice between three alternatives.’

AREA is a word that should have a specific geographical significance, but which has become a catch-all term to refer to a subject or a topic. ‘This used to be a nice area’ illustrates a legitimate usage. ‘Growing roses is an area I know a lot about’ is not.

BATTLE This is an intransitive verb. One does not battle cancer, one battles against it, or possibly with it.

BETWEEN must refer to a position, literal or abstract, within two other positions — ‘he was between his two aunts at the theatre’ or ‘she was at school between 1970 and 1980’. It is wrong when used to describe the relations between more than two things.

BORED One is bored with something, not bored of it. One may also be bored by someone or something. ‘I am bored with him’ suggests a chronic problem; ‘I am bored by him’ suggests something more episodic

BRUTALISE This verb means to make someone brutal, not to treat them brutally. Hence, ‘the boy was brutalised by regular beatings’ means the beatings turned him into a brute.

CASSANDRA When Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, deceived the god Apollo, he decided that nobody should believe her prophecies, even though they were true. Thus when the term is used to signify a prophet of doom, it ignores its true meaning, which is to signify someone whose prophecies or predictions are ignored.

CELIBATE is used these days to denote someone who abstains from sexual activity. Its strict meaning is one who is resolutely unmarried.

CHOICE One frequently hears someone say: ‘You have two choices.’ For example, The Times, on September 27, 2012, said that ‘Nick Clegg put two choices before the Liberal Democrats yesterday’. But you do not have two choices: you have a choice. A man may have two, five or a dozen ties to choose from. He still has only one choice — not two, five or 12.

COLLIDE and COLLISION One occasionally reads about people who have died or been injured in a car that has collided with a tree. This is remarkable, because a collision requires both parties to it to be in motion. So two moving vehicles may collide, but not a car and a tree.

CRESCENDO A misunderstanding of musical terms leads to the misuse of the term crescendo, which is a gradual rising of the dynamic in a passage of music. Therefore nothing can ‘reach a crescendo’. It is not a synonym for climax.



The strict meaning of celibate is

not someone who abstains from

sex but someone who is

resolutely unmarried.



CURMUDGEON A curmudgeon is not a bloody-minded old man. He is a miser and subject to avarice. That may make him difficult, but bloody-mindedness is not what defines him.

DECIMATE As every schoolboy used to know, this was a punishment meted out to Roman legions, in which every tenth man was killed. Its correct sense in English, therefore, is the reduction of the strength of a body of people by 10 per cent. Thus it is absurd to say that ‘the workforce was decimated by 20 per cent’. The word decimate is also sometimes wrongly used to mean ‘devastate’ — as in ‘the project will decimate the countryside.’

DIE and DICE It is surprising how many people think that dice is a singular. It is a plural. The singular is die.

DILEMMA A dilemma can only be between two courses of action. It is from the Greek word meaning ‘two propositions’. If somebody cannot decide between several options, he may have a problem, or even a quandary, but he does not have the good fortune of merely having a dilemma.

DISABLED is an adjective that is now frequently misused. In sentences such as ‘the law now demands disabled access to the theatre’ it is not the access that is disabled, but the people who need it. One should write ‘the law demands access for the disabled to the theatre’.

EARN The past tense is not earnt; it is earned. However, the past tense of learn can be learnt.

EFFETE means worn out, weak or degenerate. It does not mean effeminate.

EKE OUT As a nation we seem constitutionally incapable of using this phrase correctly. Since the 13th century, eke has meant to increase, lengthen or add to. Therefore, if one ekes out something, one extends it, or makes it last longer — so it would be correct to say that ‘I eked out my salary for a month’. Yet one constantly reads about a person ‘eking out his existence’— to suggest a life of struggle or hardship. If one is eking out an existence, one is making it last longer.

EMULATE If a man seeks to emulate another, he seeks to match the other man’s achievements and, perhaps, surpass them. Emulate does not mean to copy or imitate. So it is incorrect to say: ‘By buying a Mini, as his brother had, Johnnie sought to emulate his choice of car.’

FATWA Because we are used to hearing that a fatwa has been issued by Muslims to demand the death of an infidel or of one who has offended Islam, we assume it is synonymous with a death sentence. It is not: it is simply a decision taken by a clerical authority within the faith, and can apply to any course of action.

FIRST and FIRSTLY First is an adjective and firstly is an adverb: so write ‘first, second, third’ not ‘firstly, secondly, thirdly’.

FORENSIC has the meaning of ‘pertaining to the courts of law’. It does not mean ‘rigorously examined’, ‘detailed’ or ‘scrutinised’. One often hears that someone has made ‘a forensic speech’ or has undertaken ‘a forensic examination’ of something, or done ‘forensic research’. In each case, the adjective is abused, unless any of these activities is related to a court of law.

FRACTION Educated writers often use the phrase ‘a fraction of the cost went towards overheads’ without thinking of its logic. What they inevitably mean is ‘a small fraction’ — because they forget that nine-tenths is also a fraction.

FULSOME We have all read about someone making a fulsome apology. Those who use this phrase usually believe that the adjective means ‘full’ or ‘plentiful’, but it doesn’t. What it does mean is something that is overdone or grotesquely flattering or obsequious, and therefore insincere.

HALVE One can halve the price of something, or halve a grapefruit; but a price cannot halve. It has to be halved.

HAVER To haver is not to be indecisive; it is to waffle.

HOPEFULLY When someone says ‘hopefully, Mary will be given a better report next term’, what he is actually saying is that the giving will be done hopefully. What he means to say is ‘it is to be hoped’, ‘I hope’ or ‘one hopes’ that Mary will be given a better report. Hopefully, correctly used, is an adverb that means ‘full of hope’ — as in ‘it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive’.

IMMOLATE is widely believed to mean ‘burn’. It does not. It means to sacrifice a life. It is an immolation to jump, in the spirit of sacrifice, off a cliff.

INTERJECT is not a synonym for ‘interrupt’ — as misused in a sentence such as ‘the backbencher interjected during the minister’s statement to point out an error of fact’. To interject is to insert something into a conversation, as in ‘he interjected an observation about the weather during the discussion’.

KARMA is a word from Buddhism and Hinduism that means fate or destiny shaped by a person’s actions. These days, it is often misused as a synonym for ‘atmosphere’ or ‘context’ — as in ‘there was bad karma in the office’.

LITERALLY is one of the more abused words in our tongue. One hears people say ‘he literally jumped out of his skin’, when we all know full well he did nothing of the sort. To make matters worse, even if you literally fell down the stairs, the word is nothing more than a silly and pointless filler.



Literally is one of the more abused words in our tongue. The

word is nothing more than a silly

and pointless filler.

LIVID The literal meaning of this adjective (as opposed to the metaphorical, which means angry) is not ‘intensely coloured’ — for example ‘the curtains were a livid orange’. It refers to the black and blue discolouring caused by a bruise.

ON TO and ONTO Onto is a preposition invented by people familiar with its legitimate cousin into. Onto does not, however, exist. One steps on to a bus, or a dance floor.

ORPHAN Many believe that for a person to be an orphan, he must have neither parent alive. This is not so. An orphan is someone who has lost either parent; those who have lost both are double orphans. It is therefore quite correct to describe a child who has lost his mother or his father as an orphan.

PARTAKE If one partakes of something, one consumes or experiences it: ‘he partakes of tea every morning at eight’, or ‘she partakes of the sea air’. It does not mean to take part, or to participate. Therefore it is wrong to say ‘he will not partake in the negotiations’.

We have become sensitive to many words that in the past we would not have a given a second rhought to

PREGNANT An expression much used these days is ‘falling pregnant’. It is intended as a parallel to ‘falling ill’ rather than to ‘falling from grace’. Yet to say that one has ‘fallen pregnant’ suggests that the condition has been achieved without any conscious act on the part of the mother. This is an absurdity.



PRISTINE does not mean bright, shiny and new. It means in original condition.

PURPORT means to appear to be something, as in ‘he purported to be a former SAS officer, because he had detailed knowledge of their training techniques.’ It does not mean ‘to claim’.

RUBBISH In recent years, rubbish has become an adjective — ‘a rubbish football team’, ‘a rubbish film’, ‘a rubbish pop group’. This is depressing because it is not as though the English language lacks terms to describe low quality or inadequacy. These abominations have no place in serious writing.

TRANSPIRE The literal meaning is: to emit through the skin in the form of a vapour. The metaphorical meaning is: to become apparent. Yet transpire is now often used to mean ‘happen’ or ‘occur’ — as in ‘it transpired on a Saturday afternoon’ — which is just silly.

THE LEGENDARY ROY ORBISON AND OTHER ACHINGLY NAFF FAUX PAS ACHINGLY is a typical example of a word that will soon pass out of fashion. Early in the 21st century it was considered, for a short time, witty and expressive to describe something as ‘achingly modern’ or ‘achingly chic’. Happily, boredom set in, and the moment has almost passed. ADDRESS As a verb, this used to mean: to write a destination on an envelope, to speak at a public meeting or to talk formally to another individual. It is now used to describe someone turning his or attention to almost anything, as in ‘he addressed the problem’, ‘she addressed the question of what to wear’ and ‘he addressed his pork pie’. The joke soon wears thin. COMMUNITY We no longer have authors, we have ‘the writing community’, and presumably also ‘the reading community’, and so on. This sort of thing is just silly. -GATE Richard Nixon was brought down in 1974 by the Watergate scandal. Ever since, any scandal of almost any description seems to be denominated by having the suffix -gate applied to it. In 2010 a dispute over the use of scientific data in the global warming debate was called ‘Climategate’, and the falsification of an injury in professional rugby became ‘Bloodgate’. The ultimate absurdity was when the Government Chief Whip was allegedly rude to a policeman manning the gates of Downing Street and the ensuing furore became known as ‘Gategate’. This usage ceased to be funny, let alone interesting, not long after it was first coined. LEGENDARY has become a grotesquely overused adjective that is applied to people who have had moderate success or fame at soccer, acting or as popular entertainers — as in ‘the legendary Roy Orbison’. Since the early 17th century, however, legendary has been used to describe a tale of antiquity, handed down often through the narrative tradition, for which the historical evidence is either scant or non-existent. The late Mr Orbison is of recent provenance, and that he existed is beyond question. It is therefore best to confine the term legendary to people who are genuinely the stuff of legend over many generations, such as St George, Robin Hood or King Arthur. SORTED and SORTED OUT Sorted appears to have come into vogue after a rash of violent British gangster films in the 1990s. The correct term is ‘sorted out’ — unless you’re referring to several objects. Thus, the post can be sorted; buttons in a box are sorted; so are seeds for planting. TO DIE FOR A popular film called To Die For, released in 1995, caused the phrase to become the (almost immediately tiresome) term of superlative approbation among a certain sort of people. Many of us have been told that a friend has eaten a lobster cocktail to die for, or seen a set of watercolours of similarly lethal effect, and had to clench parts of our anatomy. WELL In recent years, the adjective well has been widely used as an attempted witticism by educated people to mean ‘very’. Again, this is a legacy of the rash of films about cockney gangsters. Individual gangsters were ‘well hard’, and if they carried a ‘shooter’ they were considered ‘well tasty’. The vogue for sounding like an East End thug then transmuted into sounding like a black musician, and the highest term of approbation became ‘well wicked’.