The word anniversary contains an element meaning “year”. So it is wrong and very annoying, to hear weeks or months being called anniversaries, and just as annoying to hear “five-year anniversary” instead of “fifth anniversary”.
Christopher Howse, Letters Editor
“Changed” (as in “Nothing has…”)
My small role in affecting the course of the 2017 election campaign came from my question at the launch of the Conservatives’ Welsh manifesto in Wrexham in May three weeks before election day.
It was the end of a torrid four days for Theresa May, which saw the Prime Minster being forced to drop her ill-thought plans for social care swiftly dubbed the “dementia tax”.
I was sitting in the press conference as four TV journalists asked Mrs May about the climbdown.
Then Mrs May picked me. I tried a different tack. “Mrs May – answer yes or no to this question: will anything else in the manifesto change between now and June 8?”
The PM stared at me. “Nothing has changed,” she said, “nothing has changed.”
There was silence. Then laughter. It seemed inexplicable that Mrs May was apparently denying the U-turn she had just announced. The Tories lead in the polls evaporated days later and the party crashed to one of the biggest electoral disasters in modern political history. Mrs May was wrong – everything had changed.
Christopher Hope, Chief Political Correspondent and Assistant Editor
Content
As in the noun, meaning “stuff”. It dogged my 2017 thanks to two flourishing entertainment trends: television became more like cinema, through ambitious series such as The Crown, Twin Peaks and Mindhunter, while cinema became more like television, via both the rise of streaming services and those blockbuster franchises with their episodic drip. Using “content” as a catch-all term for beautiful things to watch (or listen to, or read) is depressing, like calling three-star Michelin cuisine “supplies”. Please never use it again.