Bart Becht, chief executive of Reckitt Benckiser, appeared in a newspaper last week describing some of his company’s innovations as “very stupid”. The consumer products group angrily said it was obvious to everyone present that Mr Becht, whose first language is Dutch, meant that the company benefited from simple innovations, not stupid ones, and that his English had momentarily let him down. The other newspapers, including the Financial Times, certainly took it that way.

I have every sympathy with Mr Becht. Once, in my French class, I attempted to summarise an article on the rise of fast food in France by saying that the French now used their lunch hour merely to satisfy their hunger and ended up saying they used their lunch hour to satisfy their wives.