The word pedants’ top 10 | It’s specific, not Pacific | You didn’t ‘literally’ die.

Enough’s enough, it’s time to reclaim the English language and stop word bastardisation before words change unrecognisably. I admit I suspect I’m just hitting an age where certain phrases and slang make my buttocks clench, my teeth grate and fill me with a need to yell out loud, but I suspect I’m not alone. This all started...

Council tax, 20 years since it was valued: a flawed system no one’s brave enough to sort out

Take a look at the back of your council tax letter, you’ll see that what band you’re in depends on the property’s value on 1 April 1991, twenty years ago today.   This valuation was done in ‘second gear’ by estate agents and others driving past. It was a stop-gap measure, but in England and Scotland it’s...