Friday 13th doesn’t sound like an auspicious day to fly, but that’s what I tried to do - didn’t quite manage it, though... Was about to fly back to the UK from Washington, DC, but no sooner had we all settled down on the plane than we were told that we had to ‘deplane’. Apparently they’d forgotten to do a security sweep, with the result that we actually took off on Friday 14th. Not that I’m superstitious....

I really like this constructive use of ‘deplane’. From now on I shall, when I arrive at work, ‘decar’; my students will ‘deoffice’, and my children, because they are tired of the responsibility of having to grow up, will be encouraged instead to ‘dechild’. And anyone I don’t like can just go decelibate.

oops, have I just overstepped the mark of decency? I don’t think so; after all, I was merely making a comment on the linguistic potential of United Airline speak.

Speaking of which (I shall leave the reader to figure out which of the above I am referring to), here is another tip for prospective authors submitting papers to the journal I edit: If you are asked to make changes, and you don’t, and you then feel sufficiently aggrieved at receiving a rejection letter that you feel an urgent need to write to the Editor questioning his professional competence, integrity, and maternal ancestry, do make sure that if you are going to sign your letter with the names of your co-authors, they are aware that, on their behalf, you called the Editor an incompetent imbecile of indeterminate genetic stock. They may not necessarily share your views, and may one day wish to submit something of their own to the journal, in which case it would be a shame if mud had stuck.

It must be the jetlag, but I swear my sentences are longer, more convoluted, and generally less comprehensible than normal. It’s definitely time to deblog.