28 December 2002

This has been the season of goodwill. Which, of course, it hasn’t. I am sorry for stating the obvious but there is always less goodwill around at Christmas than any other time of the year. The newspapers seem more vicious, more scandal-ridden and more aggressive than in spring, summer or autumn. This is principally because

People seem to lose the use of their native wit when they consider the origins of words. That idiot’s sorting office, the Internet, has a well-intentioned site (at io.com/gibbonsb/words.words.words.html) edited by Gibbons Burke that discusses nautical terms used by Patrick O’Brian, who, Mr Burke remarks, uses expressions ‘in a way that allows the reader to