Pedantgate

After an exciting competition on Twitter last night, the Banned List now runs to 100 entries. The full updated list is here – along with a tribute to George Orwell, compiler of the 1946 version which unexpectedly also includes the word “progressive”.

Number 100: “The suffix -gate added to any news theme supposedly embarrassing to a government.” It was proposed by John Woodcock, Labour MP for Barrow and Furness, to whom the Committee extends its grateful thanks. An honourable mention, meanwhile, to Fiona Laird, who proposed “At this moment in time”, slotted in at number 20 in a late change to the running order.

It could easily go to 1,000, but at some point all communication would be “reduced to grunts, hand gestures and prepositions”, as Arieh Kovler put it.

That’s enough. I’m retiring from the pedantry business and am going to write entirely in clichés from now on.

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