My sister and I were constantly reprimanded for “dropping our h’s and t’s” and whilst, at the time, I found it extremely annoying, I found myself correcting my own children when they fell foul of what my mother used to refer to as lazy speech and I’m now doing it to my five-year-old grandson!

Whilst there are sayings that make no sense to me whatsoever, my all time loathsome saying has got to be “it is what it is,” which appeared from nowhere during the past couple of years and personally, the sooner it goes back there, the better. Of course it is what it is, it could hardly be anything else!

Our language must be very difficult to learn as there are so many words which are spelt the same and pronounced differently and also so many words which are pronounced the same, yet spelt differently. I have the utmost respect for the people in the media for whom English is not their native tongue and the fluency they have and the command of our language is astonishing – I cannot help but wonder how many of us could engage in conversation with a Swede, Norwegian or a Pole!

I am also reminded of the comedy show where an exasperated student was attempting to get to grips with Latin and pointed out, quite justifiably I thought, that he could not speak to a dead Roman even if he knew the ...... language! Fair point mate! Carol May, St Nicholas Church