Mind your language
MY husband made a noise like a stork regurgitating a toad. I thought a dose of whisky had gone down the wrong way, but it was only a semi-voluntary reac- tion to reading some remarks by Mr Jack Straw.
He (my husband) focused his wrath on an innocuous phrase, one might think: 'For a small island we encompass an enormous range. . . . ' He went off, and a few minutes later he stumped back waving a volume of The Children's Encyclopaedia or something. 'There,' he said, 'islands.'
Sure enough, Britain comes eighth among the world's islands (Australia not counting, being, like Antarctica, a continental land mass). And who could name all the seven islands larger than Britain? Greenland (at 840,000 square miles) I knew. And I could mention Madagascar (at 227,800 square miles compared with Britain's 84,186). But I had forgotten, as second, New Guinea and, third, Borneo — each more than three times Britain's size.
It gets more difficult after that. Sumatra is twice the area of Britain, but so is Baffin Island. A mere 4,000 square miles bigger than Britain is Honshu (Hokkaido, another Japanese island is less than half the size).
Other surprises were that Iceland (40,000) is bigger than Ceylon (I mean Sri Lanka — 25,000), as is Ireland (31,839 square miles).
And, as my husband rightly said between snorts, which famous people have you heard of from Baffin Island, Madagascar, New Guinea or from giant Greenland?
In future, will politicians please refer to Britain as a large island, if my hus- band is to be spared apoplexy?
In passing: on Radio Four, Tom Sut- cliffe, I think it was, mentioned that in a production of Romeo and Juliet 'the parents are foregrounded'. Why do 1 find this verb unpleasant?
Dot Wordsworth
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