What is wrong with the English language?

I have had the misfortune of visiting an internet discussion forum on which one member posted that she needed to 'vent'. I fully expected her to hurry offline to deal with some very full beer caskets before they exploded, but what followed was a poorly written and badly punctuated diatribe about a member of her family.  As far as I remember; and I have an excellent memory and education; the term 'vent' means to 'expel gas, air or liquid'. Whenever anyone says 'I need to vent' I form a mental image of them swelling up with hot gasses and a flap bursting open on the top of their head to expel the excess. Very unpleasant!

It is also very tiresome to overhear 'Sick', when they apparently mean 'great or nice'. This was explained to me when I called for a bowl and flannels when a visiting child yelled 'Sick' upon seeing Tarquin's quad bike. I also had a young man who stepped in front of me on the tube, who, when remonstrated with replied 'My bad'. I commented to Henrietta who happened to be with me that it was splendid that someone with a learning disability was so independent. She however pointed this out as meaning 'I apologise' rather than  an abbreviated form of  'I have been a naughty boy.'

Beef is apparently no longer a very nice meat that must be carefully cooked to a perfect medium rare and served with horseradish sauce. This explains why I was met with such incomprehension when a woman I barely know came up to me in the village shop to tell me that she 'had a beef with me innit' and I stated that I was quite certain that I had served lamb at the village hall's annual farm worker's meal and I was Lady Fortesque not 'Innis'. It turned out that she had some very inconsequential grumble to make regarding the hours that her son was working for us on the shoot! The cheek of the woman I could perhaps forgive, but the mangling of our fine language I cannot.

In addition, when on earth did it become possible to 'screw up' anything other than paper to put into the fireplace? And as for the other meaning of screw. The term 'fuck' has always been perfectly good to describe a 'quickie' with someone to whom one is not married to. I deplore the bandying about of the terms 'fuck and 'fucking'. They are wonderful and powerful words when used appropriately. What else is one supposed to shout when the horse bolts or the inheritance tax is increased? These words are being cheapened by the those who have no appreciation of our wonderful and precious language. The first time that one said the word fuck used to be a very special and powerful moment that felt terrifically naughty. Now one can walk down any high street and hear it all the time, even small children use it in public without a second thought!

Dear, dear readers, there are so many examples that this post could become interminable. It is so important to keep our language alive and pure! Defend it darlings from further degradation whenever you can. Keep all of those lovely long and archaic words alive by using them wherever and whenever one can. Remember it is language, after all that separates us from the animals. And before anyone mentions Koko the gorilla I can point you to a very good animal trainer that will have one's horse counting before the week is out, but one still shouldn't expect Flicka to do one's accounts!

New Year Festivities

Absolutely spendid New Year darlings! Took Marco's private jet up to Edinburgh where he had invited a select party of 25 of us to celebrate Hogmanay at his newly acquired country seat. It is so nice when new money rescues old money. Particularly when the house, its treasures and staff are all kept as they were. I understand that he has even kept the old incumbents on as Housekeeper and Farm Manager respectively, although he has insisted that they are not to use their title in any correspondance or dealings with tradesmen as it may Undermine his Position. I would have thought that his having an Italian name and a very improbable double-barrell was enough to do that on its own, but no matter.

The celebrations were Splendid. As this was only Marco's second year in in this country he did rather well with keeping up the traditions of both his homeland and that adopted, although one's stomach did protest at the combination of haggis and zampone. I was picking splinters of piggy toe bones out of my teeth for the rest of the evening and Andrew nearly choked on one that was more wild boar than domestic piggy! Neither of us have ever really been fans of trotters. I know that our cook would never dream of cooking such Nasty Things! But we all agreed that the food was Excellent considering.

There was also a near miss - thank goodness! - when Marco decided to follow theItalian tradition of throwing old possessions out of the window to make room for a 'new start'. Lady G- fortunately snatched the 17th century priceless Chinese vase before it was hurled out of the drawing room window, although the 19th century Venetian mirror was not so fortunate! The beautiful Persian rug was also a little scorched by the throwing of the firecrackers, which was rather a pity, although it was of quite an Inferior Pattern and Unknown Provenance. As I was saying to Lady G -  while Marco was stamping out the sparks on the rug - Quite Honestly I rather fear for the rest of the house, but that is what happens when those Without Breeding acquire the means to own things that they have previously only been employed to clean or fix.

We played all of the usual parlour games, wink murder, blind man's buff (made rather easier after Marco's furniture throwing exhibition) and charades. I did rather well with 'The Lady and the Tramp' which was rather too easy with Bunty in the room! I was also terribly impressed with Marco's grandmother's 'The Story of O'. Who knew that one could remain so flexible into one's nineties?! Lady G- did rather struggle however with Free Willy and we all got terribly confused, but no more so than H. who woke up at that point and became Quite Agitated before being pacified with another 'wee dram'.

Then we all went first footing to the local village with many a dram to offer, but for some reason nobody was home at any of the 10 or so tiny, sweet little cottages that we knocked at, although I swear that the lights were all on before we started knocking and singing. What a shame they missed out on all of Good Cheer and Best Wishes that the 25 of us wanted to deliver after an evening of Celebrations. I know that Marco was also hoping to discuss his planning applications too which would have saved him some time! Pity.

Anyway, we all had a wonderful New Year and I am certain that 2011 will be another Vintage Year for all of us! After all as David has said 'we are All in this Together!' A little belt tightening never hurt anyone as I said to Nanny when I turned off her radiator.

Happy New Year!

Ed Milliband and Childhood Nursery games

How lovely! Ed Milliband leader of the the opposition has said that 2011 will be a year of Consequences. What a truly lovely idea. Consequences was one of our favourite nursery games as children. I remember being taught to play by my splendid Aunt Edina. We spent many happy hours sitting on the rug in front of the nursery fire, each of the four of us writing  - in great secret of course - our carefully chosen sentence to progress the story before diligently folding the paper over and running our whole hand across the fold to make it sharp and prevent it accidently falling open, before passing it on to the next person.
The giggles that we had when we discovered that 'a little girl called Susan', 'hiked up Mount Everest', 'dressed in turkey feathers and hot pants', 'to buy raspberry jam from a French monkey called Marcel'. Sometimes they would get rude of course, and frequent mention was made of knickers and lavatories and kissing, but that was Aunt Edina for you!
Anyway it is nice to know that even the sons of Jewish, Marxist, Liberal, Intellectuals played the same nursery games and, more importantly value them.
Now, I'm off to the Nursery wing make sure that the Nanny is introducing Jemima and Tarquin to our heritage in the form of traditional games, rhymes, sayings and routines.