The ghastly truth

Paul Johnson once wrote that the ability to say ‘really’ in 12 different ways was the birthright of every true Englishman, or woman. Really rather awkward. Really dreadful. Really good effort. Really went to town. I know him really well. Did she really mean that? I mean, really! One word, many meanings.

‘Ghastly’ is another thoroughly English word, in tone and application. Its meaning is implicit, rather than explicit. It’s a word shared by people of similar (that is to say, well-brought-up) backgrounds, which makes it all the more surprising that Tatler magazine, which likes to present itself as a guide for metropolitan smarties, has declared ghastly to be ‘unfashionable’.

Michael Henderson defends ‘ghastly’ on the podcast:

As many of Tatler’s readers might say in response: how ghastly. Some words do pop into fashion and then pop out again, but ghastly is not one of them. It is here to stay because — with the emphasis firmly on that long a — it does a job no other word can do.

Ghastly does not mean frightful, or vulgar. When Lord Charteris called Sarah Ferguson ‘vulgar’, three times, he chose his words carefully. Some people are manifestly ghastly: Jonathan Ross, Salman ‘speaking as an artist’ Rushdie, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Victoria Beckham. If you saw any of them walking up your drive, the shutters would come down fairly quickly.

Polly Toynbee of Gospel Oak and Tuscany, who tripped over a joke four decades ago and has taken pains not to suffer the indignity again, is ghastly. Nigel Kennedy, a potty–mouthed Peter Pan, is ghastly. ‘Nigel was never meant to grow up,’ says somebody who knew him when he was a well-spoken schoolboy. José Mourinho, the manager of Manchester United, is ghastly even by the standards of football, which are comfortably the worst of any professional sport.