French TV just announced that London won the Olympic Games. Until a month or so ago, this outcome was unimaginable. It was certain that Paris would win. It already had an olympic-ready stadium, an olympic village, had already started the infastructure renovations, the town was festooned in IOC colours, shopkeepers had 2012 signs up in their windows, and stall-owners wore 2012 caps. The Queen herself said that Paris would win because Londoners weren’t behind the bid. She should know, her daughter is a voting member on the IOC.

So what changed?
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For my first sentence of my first post, I would first like to thank these kind gentlemen for letting a girl (as Blimpish put it, ‘a real, live one!’) into their midst. I’m frightfully flattered to have been asked up for coffee and I promise to put the loo seat back up before I leave.

With the worldwide elevation of the ‘couch potato’ story from ‘and finally…’ to actual news, I thought I’d talk a little about language and politics, and I’m afraid it’s a long one. You see, from a descriptive linguist’s position, even if the British Potato Council is successful, there is something fundamentally pointless about changing a word in a dictionary.
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