On English

Another scintillating dinner party with the redoubtable Mary (her of two names) marked the onset of this musing. I have long been an exponent of this remarkable language and have a keen ear for the nuances, inflections and peculiar dialects, which have fascinated me since I was forced to master this baffling collection of idioms at the very late age of thirteen. English, to my knowledge, is the only language that has rules that can only be applied to one instance and where all other occurrences of the same rule are dealt with as exceptions.

My knowledge of Mandarin, Urdu, Hindustani, the various Arab dialects and the plethora of African languages is insufficient to include them in comment. However, amongst European languages, English has by far the largest vocabulary. This fact is obviously unknown to most whose native tongue this is, since they continually reinvent ontic words. The biggest culprits are the authors of, so called, business consultancy documents, whose lack of content is usually compensated by an abundance of nonsensical jargon that, for reasons I have yet to fathom, ends up being regurgitated by the readers of these overpriced tomes and ends up at dinner parties!

Examples abound. The expression "mind set" was mentioned several times by my Norwegian Chairman, who one might forgive such transgression, in the interest of career progression. I had to draw the line and raise an objection, however, when Mary decided to make use of this piece of absurdity. For those of you who know the lady, this action was not taken lightly, but I felt the risk of physical violence was well worth the effort to correct a considerable corpus delicti. The correct, and long established word is ATTITUDE. I am not talking about "A position similar to an arabesque in which a ballet dancer stands on one leg with the other raised either in front or in back and bent at the knee", nor "The orientation of an aircraft's axes relative to a reference line or plane, such as the horizon", but "A state of mind or a feeling; disposition: an attitude of open hostility".

The English language is replete with similes, and rich with subtle nuances that bestow an infinite wherewithal of expression. It is wonderfully confusing to foreigners, which is why, in all probability; it is used so much in the European Community.