It is with some trepidation that I leave the train at Oxford and stride off towards the offices of the Oxford English Dictionary in Great Clarendon Street. I imagine the scene that awaits me: dark, oak-panelled rooms occupied by crusty, bearded old pedants whose chief pleasure in life consists of heaping scorn on people like me for their sloppy use of the English language.

“People like you? People like you?” I hear them exclaiming already. “Presumably, you mean people such as you. If they were like you, they would have to bear a close resemblance to you, which would mercifully limit their number.”