“There are all kinds of pedants around with more time to read and imitate Lynne Truss and John Humphrys than to write poems, love-letters, novels and stories it seems. They whip out their Sharpies and take away and add apostrophes from public signs, shake their heads at prepositions which end sentences and mutter at split infinitives and misspellings, but do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language? Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of their tongues against the tops of their teeth transport them to giddy euphoric bliss? Do they ever yoke impossible words together for the sound-sex of it? Do they use language to seduce, charm, excite, please, affirm and tickle those they talk to? Do they? I doubt it. They’re too farting busy sneering at a greengrocer’s less than perfect use of the apostrophe. Well sod them to Hades. They think they’re guardians of language. They’re no more guardians of language than the Kennel Club is the guardian of dogkind.”

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About Stephen Fry

English actor, comedian, writer, and broadcaster

Sir Stephen Fry is an English actor, comedian, writer, and broadcaster. He is known for a long career in British television, from early sketch and sitcom work to presenting panel shows and appearing in drama series. He was knighted in 2025 for services to mental health awareness, the environment, and charity. Fry first came to notice on Alfresco and Blackadder, then as part of the comedy partnership with Hugh Laurie in A Bit of Fry & Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster. He later appeared in Kingdom, Bones, and The Dropout, and hosted QI from 2003 to 2016, a role that brought six BAFTA TV Award nominations.

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Hippopotamus, The

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