It is Alice in Wonderland territory, Orwellian almost, for any government of any political persuasion to seek to come along and try to rewrite the lexicon.
And a new word has entered the political lexicon, which may soon become inescapable.
That is, so long as the authorities haven't consolidated, rationalised and – well, take your pick from the beancounters' lexicon – I'll use destroyed one of the English summer's greatest joys.
WS Graham wrote in a 1977 poem of "Floating across the frozen tundra / of the lexicon and the dictionary", but I find lexicons to be more tropical jungle than tundra, gloriously ornate in their tendrilled outgrowths and complex root systems.
Or as Cocker punchily puts it, "If acorn goes from the lexicon, the game is up for nature in England".
It is Alice in Wonderland territory, Orwellian almost, for any government of any political persuasion to seek to come along and try to rewrite the political lexicon".
They need their own words to define their needs and activities: a lexicon of objectives, outcomes and deliverables where a sense of purpose becomes a "direction of travel", where a difficulty always becomes a "challenge", a dilemma mutates into an "issue" and where serving your audience becomes "maximising stakeholder value".
Jon Bird writes: If angry resistance to a world defined and regulated by men characterised Nancy Spero's early art works, then an exuberant and joyful playfulness came to dominate her scrolls and printed installations over the last three decades as her lexicon of cavorting female figures soared across paper and wall.
Russian prisoners' lexicon is colourful and full of historical references.
Martin Skegg William Morris spoke of catering "to the swinish luxury of the rich", something that the five-star hotel has been doing since the words Savoy and Ritz entered the lexicon as bywords for opulence.
So if he wasn't entirely sure as to when he should switch on his torch, the lexicon is close at hand".
