Mind your language
THERE ARE some mistakes we all like to avoid. Take decimated; of course it means 'the destruction of one in ten', and so it is annoying to hear people on television using it to signify any large- scale killing. Yet I heard not without sYmpathy a man in a public house saying to his friend, 'She was decimated by that stroke.'
With less excuse the Times, on its front page last week, spoke about an exaltation' by a leading judge. I have heard, though never entirely approved of, 'an exaltation of larks', but not of 'an exaltation of judges'. I suppose they meant exhortation. But there is also a general confusion between exaltation and exultation, and no wonder, for if one's spirits are lifted up there may be some reason to jump for joy. Again in the no-excuses department Was a Radio Three commentator talking of characters in Verdi being on an Occam's razor' between love and duty. Occam's razor is not a dilemma. It was invented by William (died c.1349) of Ockham, a nice village in Surrey. It means that 'for purposes of explanation things not known to exist should not, unless it is absolutely necessary, be pos- tulated as existing' (OED). ('Essentia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessi- tateno
Dot Wordsworth
PS. My husband has just perused this unbidden at the kitchen table. He remarked that I hadn't mentioned sex this week. I told him to go and shave.
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