A previous post on the delectable or detestable (delete as applicable) use of the word Cafaurant in a quaint village of Lynton sparked up a healthy debate.

We thought that was the last word on the matter, until this.

Clearly, we live in hybrid times, where no word is safe from being surgically merged with another.

Another controversial one  is the word ‘Spork’. It makes my friend Mark really, really angry.

I spotted a bunch of the blighters for sale in Broadway Market the other day – and I was struck by the fact that a Spork is not only a fusion of a fork and a spoon, but now one edge of it is actually serrated. Thus making it ALSO A KNIFE. How does this even make sense? A) You can’t do all three tasks at once with only one device – rendering it pointless. B) Nothing in the name implies the ability to cut or slice. So it’s a failure both practically and semantically.

And that completes today’s angry linguistic rant. *takes pedant hat off*. Except to say that the other day in Birmingham’s German Christmas market, I purchased a lovely woolly pair off GLITTENS. Yes, that is, mittens that handily metamorphose into gloves when you need your fingers to be functional yet warm. Perfect for typing in the Tea Building then.