Opening Lines: I know some of you suffer from onomatodontlikeia because I did some research

This is the time of year when the media is full of tips on how to get through the grim weeks ahead. But we are ignoring the mental health benefits of a good wallow. The wallowing-mud in this case is ‘words that annoy’.

I have always had bugbears. (By the way, the original ‘bugbear’ was a medieval bogeyman for scaring children, so this article won’t be a complete waste of your time, if wallowing’s not your bag). But every so often, a different word provokes a reaction. And so it was that when someone said ‘beverage’ on the radio last week, I started to twitch.