Why do we still struggle to say what we really mean? In an age when we’re all encouraged to overshare online, we can be remarkably evasive in real life. We’ve moved on a little from ‘he never married’ – but not much. Only last year, I went to a memorial service for a wonderful man who was so camp he made Liberace look like an SAS officer. He had had a lifetime subscription to Royalty Magazine, and a ferociously proud collection of china figurines. At the reception afterwards, a relation of his lamented how sad it was that ‘he just never found the right girl’. It wasn’t quite the time, but I wanted to reply that she’d have needed the ‘full meat and two veg’. See? Euphemism upon euphemism. 

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We’re particularly guilty of this linguistic coyness when it comes to matters close to our hearts. Much as I like them, I’ll never quite understand the British obsession with dogs. Eavesdropping on a group of old trouts playing bridge a few weeks ago, I heard one describe how ‘nervous’ Fido is........

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