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Dot Wordsworth

Dot Wordsworth

The Spectator

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Mind your language / Are hyenas really relatable?

A new television wildlife series called Queens (the ruling kind, not the screaming kind) shows competition among hyenas that involves infanticide....

16.03.2024 9

The Spectator

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language / What are frameworks for?

A brand new ‘robust’ framework was being woven and nailed together, so the Prime Minister announced at the end of last week. It’s barely a year...

10.03.2024 5

The Spectator

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language / Are cosmonauts really Russian?

Oleg Kononenko has been in space since 15 September last year and has just broken the cumulative record for time in orbit of 879 days. Being Russian...

15.02.2024 3

The Spectator

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language / The genteel roots of dunking

When I was a girl, it was bad manners to dunk a biscuit. Then I went abroad and found that Italian biscotti could scarcely be consumed in any other...

18.01.2024 1

The Spectator

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language / Why are quotes so often misattributed? 

‘Macmillan,’ said my husband with rare succinctness. Someone on the wireless had just asked who it was who said: ‘Events, dear boy.’ I agreed...

27.12.2023 9

The Spectator

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language / Is loitering really so bad? 

E. Cobham Brewer seems, from his most famous work, the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, published 1870, an agreeable old cove. But a biographical...

02.11.2023 2

The Spectator

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language / Are we oversharing?

Someone on that old-fashioned online game called Twitter (renamed, but still not widely known as, X) told the world of the publication of his book in...

19.10.2023 3

The Spectator

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language / The problem with cutting to the quick

‘At least he didn’t say “Cut the cheese”,’ said my husband, suddenly making a barking noise like a seal, which is his attempt at laughter....

05.10.2023 4

The Spectator

Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language / Why you can’t ‘treat’ yourself

‘I hate sneak previews,’ said my husband. I think he was talking to the wireless, as he often does, not to me, since a broadcaster had just...

30.09.2023 5

The Spectator

Dot Wordsworth

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