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Again it's annoying me that commentators on cycling say "in third wheel" when they mean "In third place". Bicycles have two wheels (it goes with the territory!), so the rider in third place is in fifth wheel!.

And another thing - every time they say "you can't underestimate" they mean "you can't overestimate"!

Owen Slot in today's Times discussing Jannik Sinner and drugs:
',,,but what about the possibility that he was purposefully cheating...?'

I suppose that could mean that he was cheating with determination, but I think the writer means 'purposely', i.e. deliberately. I hope the distinction still exists but you never know nowadays.

Owen Slot in today's Times discussing Jannik Sinner and drugs:
',,,but what about the possibility that he was purposefully cheating...?'

I suppose that could mean that he was cheating with determination, but I think the writer means 'purposely', i.e. deliberately. I hope the distinction still exists but you never know nowadays.

Radio 3 presenters habitually sign off with "I'll see you tomorrow", or similar. Do they know something about my radio that I don't?

Not really pedantry, but may be of interest, I see that the Telegraph is celebrating 100 years since it became the first British newspaper to publish a daily crossword.

They are publishing a vintage crossword every day over the next month starting with Puzzle No.1 which appeared on 30 July, 1925 (not a cryptic, but interesting).

A couple more puzzles from 1942 and 1944 are also available (these are cryptic).

Just seen a BBC news report on the Russian earthquake that placed the "epicentre" well underground!

I may have had a rant here before about 'conflab'* - the asterisk is Scrabble notation for a 'phoney', a disallowed word. Conflab was used in Wednesday's Times to describe a financial meeting set up by Rachel Reeves. 'Confab' is etymologically correct with the idea of sharing stories (cf fables). My experience, however, is that 'conflab' is regrettably the more frequent usage.

Paulhaberson, that was interesting. I've never noticed any previous rants about that word. Although 'conflab' may be disallowed by the Scrabble people, it's got an entry in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. There's no mention of it being a made-up word, wrongly made up . It's listed as ' noun, colloquial (chiefly US) L19 . {Origin Alt} = CONFAB, noun.'

That L19 indicates that the word was first used between 1870 and 1899. I think I'm quite tempted to use that version, just for devilment!

Does this belong here?

My late partner used to speak of a GBO: A Glimpse of the blindingly obvious.

Last night, the Beeb had two programmes about nuclear warfare.. They carried a warning:

This programme contains scenes which some viewers might find upsetting.

THEY WERE PROGRAMMES ABOUT NUCLEAR WAR!!!

What were these people expecting? Puppies and Kittens and bunnies hopping through flower filled meadows?