Pig Sty Avenue

In standard English bastard is of course a noun: "You rotten bastard". I don't recall hearing it used as an adverbial or adjective in other Englishes, but it is in my own English, the Jarrow version of the Geordie dialect of North East England. I remember my father saying, probably in the late 60s on hearing of alleged drug offenses, (maybe it was at the time of the infamous Mars bar bust ): "The Rolling Stones? I wish they'd roll right over the edge of a bastard cliff." Here he was using bastard as an adjectival intensifier, giving the cliff concept a little more colour. Another time I remember him being asked about the whereabouts of some ne'er do well acquaintance, and his reply: "Behind bars. Where he bastard well belongs." Adverbial bastard always conjoined with well . And like its adjectival kin its purpose was to intensify. "I bastard well won't go!" would normally want stress on the won't. The best equivalent to t...

I'm not quite sure wtf Catherine Bennett is blabbering on about here: It's only words, maybe. But we must take care of our language . If you want to write an article complaining about use of English, you really need to take a little more care in writing clearly. Reading between the lines, perhaps she was just annoyed when the removals men couldn't understand her when she was saying, "Be careful with that vase!" Or something. I love these middle class rants about language, the general drift of which is a feeling of deep unease, a feeling that if things go on like this, people will be reduced to grunting. I suspect that the drive behind these fears is the continuing decline of RP's authority, and the quickened pace of Standard English's evolution caused by globalisation. And this thing about undergraduates being unable to communicate is caused (again, I'm guessing here, mind), by piss poor typing skills in an age where email is becoming inescapable...