If you do get down among the pees in the OED then look up 'piety', 'pomposity' and 'intolerance' (where the pee falls silent). Definitions look for precision. Does that make definitions pedantic? If it does, Alec, then why send us off to the OED (that huge book of 'irrelevancies') and neatly contradict your own 'argument'? Language matters all right!

The other day, while continuing my ever-losing battle against mountains of paper, I came across a cartoon I'd saved from many years back. It shows an overweight American stereotype businessman, mouth full of cigar, bending down to a squatting peon in some jungle nowhere, who's pouring his last two or three drops of water onto his failing shoots. The American is proffering a miniature stars and stripes (such as sits on every pc American businessman's desk) to the haggard-looking man and he's saying: "Hey, I'm sellin' a dream here! George Washington, Old Glory, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, sea-to-shinin'-sea - what's not havin' enough to eat got to do with it?'

Clearly, language matters.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1951-58

Current location (optional) Cottingham, East Yorkshire