Are our standards of spoken English on the decline?

I AM increasingly annoyed by sloppy speech. TV quiz contestants refer to ‘Me and my wife’ and the alphabet has been reduced to 23 letters because ‘t’, ‘h’ and ‘u’ have been dropped.

P. F. BRYANT, Salisbury. i thought a conversation was something you had with your neighbour over the garden fence. But it is increasingly used instead of the more appropriate terms debate or discussion when referring to important political or business matters. FRANK MCGRENAGHAN, Omagh, Co. Tyrone.

WHY are ‘issues’ taking over? Don’t we have ‘problems’?

B. WILLIAMS, Little Chalfont, Bucks. WHY has ‘key’ replaced ‘important’ or ‘vital’? Don’t get me started on ‘listen up’! P. WILLIAMS, Hayes, Middlesex.

‘WOW!’ has even spread to

the commentary box during Test matches. The last straw will be if it’s uttered by Geoffrey Boycott.

RAY KILSBY, Filey, N. Yorks. MY PET hates are ‘lor and order’; ‘fantastic’, ‘fabulous’ and ‘cool’; and the word ‘like’ scattered through every sentence.

ROY DUNNING, Bradford, W. Yorks.

I DO wish everyone would literally stop saying literally at literally every opportunity whether it’s literally appropriate or not.

CHRIS WELLS, Burton-on-Trent, Staffs. WHEN did ‘Y’ alright there?’ take the place of ‘May I help you?’ and ‘You guys’ replace ‘Sir and madam?’

K. L. REID, Birstall, Leics.

I PARTICULARLY hate the way that ‘normality’ is slowly being replaced by the Americanism ‘normalcy’.

NICK GARRICK, Crowthorne, Berks. THE split infinitive is bad enough, but I heard a BBC reporter say: ‘They are also looking in, they say, to the matter.’ I hope this new grammatical form doesn’t catch on.

DAVID COLE, Storrington, W. Sussex.