Those who indulge in the ‘infuriating genteelism’ of saying Christmas lunch must be castigated, a reader from Leicester, Mr Clifford Dunkley, tells me. Castigate them, do. But they won’t stay castigated.
Yet it must be Christmas dinner, for the phrase is fossilised, as much as ‘God save the Queen’ is fossilised in preserving the subjunctive.
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