I had so many thoughts this week, whirring around in my brain, I found it impossible to choose between them.
So, instead of presenting you with one large main course (with a generous side order of jokes) I’ll lay out a selection of ideas you can pick and choose from.
Think of it as a buffet table of words.
And just like a real buffet, there may be some ideas on display here that don’t appeal to your personal taste and may cause you to briefly shudder in dismay.
You know . . . as you do when you bite into a vol-au-vent!
While I’m on the subject, does anyone actually like them?
Of course not!
Otherwise, every town in the UK would boast branches of “Kentucky Fried Vol-au-vent”, “Vol-au-vent Express” and “Vol-au-vent King”.
And when you place your order at a certain well-known fast-food chain, (the one that brought the first ‘drive thru’ from America to the UK for people too lazy to walk a few yards from their parking place into the restaurant), you’d be asked “Do you want vol-au-vents with that?”
So, please cast your eyes over my buffet-table of ideas and feel free to disagree. I can’t hear you, anyway.
I often feel I’m the lone voice, crying out in the wilderness about some of the terrible pronunciation inflicted on us by TV and radio presenters and ‘personalities’.
But it was a radio ad that I kept hearing on a certain radio station that really got my goat.
It was advertising an electrical goods superstore and the young-sounding male voice-artist kept saying “This washing machine is only £29 a munff!”
Yes. He said “Munff”!
I know. Because the ad was repeated about four times in under an hour, after every three records.
All TV and radio ads have to be approved by the Advertising Standards Council.
So, I assume they thought it’s okay to allow someone who can’t say ‘Month’ to say ‘Munff’ in a radio ad.
Oh hang on. I’ve run out of space and you’ve barely touched the goodies on my buffet table.
To be continued . . .Later this “munff”…