No real biting, but it's fun barking

Someone who has looked at this website has concluded that I must be a grumpy old bore. Fair comment. But it's just playing grumpy, really. In real life I like to think I have a quaint charm and a kindly smile: posing as a pedant is something I do in the privacy of my own study, and don't (I hope) inflict on my friends, family and acquaintances. I might do so if they asked me to, but of course they don't.

I do love words, their ancestries, their evolving significance and use over the centuries, their capacity for evoking images and comparisons and demonstrating the metaphoricality of human thought. All this may be an acquired taste, but it is not only a harmless hobby, it is actually a constructive kind of conservation. To study the way language works sharpens one's perception and appreciation of human society. To understand one's own language better, and to try to share that understanding - such as it is - are creative and positive and in simple ways very worthwhile.


No real biting, but it's fun barking