The Local Government Association spokesman was buzzing over an interview he had just given to Canadian radio about his organisation’s 100 banned words or phrases, which include “coterminosity” and “predictors of beaconicity”.

The list of words that English and Welsh councils should never use has been around for a while, but the association decided to give it a new airing to help Tunbridge Wells council, which had fallen foul of the tabloids for banning the word “brainstorming”. Tunbridge Wells said the word was offensive to epileptics, but the National Society for Epilepsy said it was not offensive at all.