* The OED cites this sentence as its sole example of a use of the word Micawberite, wrongly implying by its definition that Gowers meant to invoke Micawber, the ‘feckless optimist’. Gowers may have been unusual in wishing instead to pay tribute to Mr Micawber’s translations into plain English (the example above is taken from chapter 11 of David Copperfield), but he was not the first to use ‘Micawberite’ itself. This term, with the OED’s meaning, was in circulation at least as far back as the 1880s. The Michigan Argonaut mentions ‘obsequious Micawberites’ in 1884; the Westminster Review in 1895 compares Micawberites to ostriches; and in a 1906 issue of the Outlook, a weekly review, the vulnerable Micawberite is conjured up in an attack on the hire-purchase system. ~

* The Times columnist who rejected the word personnel out of hand might even so have been provoked into letting off a new jet of steam at the idea that it would one day be being used of single members of the human race, as is demonstrated by these instructions for ‘vehicle extrication’: ‘To properly and safely conduct rescue-lift air bag operation, a minimum of five personnel are required: one personnel tending to the patient, two personnel on each side …, one personnel managing the rescue-lift air bag controls, and one personnel as the officer in control …’. (This list does not even add up to five, unless ‘two personnel on each side’ is taken to mean one on each side.) ~

* It was whimsical of Gowers to mention ‘Upharsin’ in a paragraph on jargon. This word, from the Aramaic, appears in the Bible, in the Book of Daniel, as an element in ‘the writing on the wall’. ‘Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin’ is inscribed by floating fingers on a piece of plaster in the palace of King Belshazzar. The King, seeing unattached fingers at work, is so terrified that the ‘joints of his loins’ are loosed. The words are a message from God. Only Daniel can interpret them. Daniel tells Belshazzar that he has been ‘found wanting’ and that his kingdom will be divided. In the night King Belshazzar is slain. ~