In 17^th-century Europe, the Dark Ages were swept away by a group of characters obsessed with logic, reason and rationality – during a period later described as ‘The Enlightenment’.

Science replaced superstition; reason replaced passion; and science allowed steam power to replace the wind.

However, in a veritable blink of an eye, the world has been overrun by the irrational, driven by superstition and fuelled by emotion. Objectivity and logic have become victims to an ideology that is quite properly described in terms of a religious cult.

Like any cult, indoctrination requires perversion of language. Whether it be a religious or political cult, murdering the English language is central to advancing the aims of ‘the cause’, so defined.

As George Orwell – a bloke who was always on the lookout for abuses of our mother tongue – put it:

If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought…