May I have a word about… the finer points of fashion - The Guardian

As those who know me will readily attest, I could never be accused of being a fashion victim. My clothes-buying decisions seldom go beyond whether I really need another linen shirt or whether or not to go for turn-ups.

Yet last week, I found myself being drawn into the curious - to me – world of high fashion and its singular vocabulary: capelet, tuxedo-jupe, paper-bag waists, cigarette-style trews, point-of-difference pencil skirt. I realise that I’m not exactly the target audience but the more I read the more mystifying it all became. And I was fully flummoxed by pull-up trousers. Pull-up trousers? What else could they be? But then I had a eureka moment. Why, all along I’ve been at fashion’s cutting edge. I can now shamelessly parade my pull-up socks, flaunt my tie-up shoes and sport my dernier cri collection of button-up shirts.

Moving swiftly on from couture to the commonplace. How annoying can the little things be, which creep perniciously into everyday usage? Consider the following blights that have now become commonplace: ahead of; meet with; park up; fry off; back in 2005. Before, meet, park, fry, in 2005 – all are more felicitous, just as explicable, fewer words. And all the better for that.

Talking of which, I would be very grateful if politicians would stop using the following phrases: “I would just like to make clear”; and “Let me be abundantly clear”. For your audience knows full well that you are about to feed us yards of flannel and acres of obfuscation about backstops, Efta, Norway-plus-plus and hard borders and that basically you are playing for time while trying to dredge up something pertinent to say. And that you never will. I hope I have made myself abundantly clear.

• Jonathan Bouquet is an Observer columnist

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