‘Give my tailor an inch and he’ll use a kilometre’
JACOB REES-MOGG’S STYLE GUIDE (PART 2)
THE new Leader of the House of Commons, the Rt Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esq., M.P., has issued his staff with a guide for writing documents...
Metric: There is no such thing as metric. All measurements are imperial. I order my own suits by the yard and inch, never by the infernal metre and centimetre. This may account for what many people regard as their somewhat baggy appearance.
No problem: One is endlessly hearing the phrase ‘No problem.’
‘Can we leave the European Union with an excellent deal, even at this late stage?’ ‘No problem!’
‘Will the Rt Hon Mr Boris Johnson, Esq., M.P., prove to be one of our greatest Prime Ministers?’ ‘No problem!’
‘Can we proceed to spend billions on crowd-pleasing measures without having to raise taxes?’ ‘No problem!’
My goodness, how coarse it all sounds! I much prefer the grammatically correct: ‘Nothing could be more simple.’ Out of the box: In my experience, there is little or no point in thinking ‘out of the box’. The last time I tried, I was on a sunny beach, clad in my usual double-breasted suit. Someone suggested that I should think ‘out of the box’ and remove my suit. This I did. And what did I find? Another double-breasted suit beneath it. The moral of this story is that those who attempt to think ‘out of the box’ are sure to find themselves trapped in another box, a little bit smaller. Party: A noun, yes; but never a verb. Perchance: He who would fain be considered civilised must utter the word ‘perchance’ at every opportunity. For example: ‘No deal is better than a bad deal, perchance.’ Poptastic: Not a word in one’s vocabulary. Pounds, shillings and pence: I always insist on sticking to our time-honoured British currency rather than this new-fangled European ‘decimalised’ nonsense. I demand an exchange rate of 240 pennies to the pound, which is what makes me the very wealthy man I am today. Rocket science, it’s not: A meaningless phrase and one best avoided. As it happens, rocket science is a comparatively easy discipline to master. One simply lights the blue touch paper and steps back. A day or two later, one or two of your best chaps find themselves on the Moon, ready to make themselves useful with their buckets and spades and what-not. Slade: To my mind, the ditties of Mr ‘Noddy’ Holder and his colleagues in the Slade popular music group leave much to be desired.
I have delivered firm instructions to all my staff that the lyrics of Slade should never be quoted without first being rendered into correct English.
Mama Weer All Crazee Now is a case in point. When it was suggested as the theme song for the Brexit movement, I was in complete accord, but only if it were changed to ‘Mother, We May All Be Prone To Unstable Decisions In These Current Circumstances’. Under; Help, I’m going: As it was sunny, I decided to change into my double-breasted pinstriped swimming trunks and go for a swim in the sea. While I was out swimming, I saw a young man flailing about. ‘Help! I’m going under!’ he yelled. ‘You assert that you are, and I quote, “going under”,’ I replied. ‘But you fail to say exactly what you mean by “going under”. It is an expression so vague as to be meaningless. And when you say “Help”, you fail to elucidate whether you are seeking help or offering it. Might I politely suggest you place a little more effort into correctly phrasing your call, and then come back to me when you are ready?’ Fortunately, by the time I had finished taking him up on his execrable use of English, the gentleman in question had finished his yelling and disappeared from sight. I returned to the shore delighted to have been able to offer him a word or two of kindly advice. Verily: The only acceptable substitute for the ghastly Americanism ‘OK’. With it: A modern expression meaning ‘modish’ or ‘up to date’, e.g., ‘The Swinging Blue Jeans are a very “with it” pop group.’ Xylophone: No gentleman ever plays the xylophone outside the privacy of his own home. Zip: No gentleman employs a zip. The Lord would not have supplied us with buttons if He did not wish us to do them up. Zounds: A first-class expression of surprise or indignation. ‘Mr Corbyn has proposed increased taxes for the better off! Zounds! Whatever will the bounder think of next!?’