English

‘Can you tell us what a stela [pronounced stealer] is and describe it for us?’ Misha Glenny asked the learned guest Fran Reynolds on In Our Time, blessedly continuing after Lord Bragg’s long innings as presenter. The episode was on Hammurabi, King of Babylon. Professor Reynolds managed to get quite far before saying: ‘There’s the most beautifully carved cuneiform inscription on the stele [pronounced steely].’ Misha Glenny then mentioned that in Paris, the week before, he had gone to ‘see the stele, as I gather it’s pronounced’, on which Hammurabi’s laws are carved. Later he picked up the courage to return to stela. It’s a word that has been used

‘How many letters?’ asked my husband, as though it were a crossword we were doing together. ‘Five,’ I replied. ‘Begins in b, ends in h.’ The clue, according to the Daily Telegraph, was that the head of Norfolk county council had told opponents not to ‘b—h and moan’. ‘Belch?’ asked my husband optimistically, adding at intervals, in exactly the same hopeful tone: ‘Blush? Birch? Bunch? Bleach?’ ‘Too many letters,’ I replied to the last suggestion. Obviously the intended word was bitch. But I wondered why it had to be blanked out. Is bitch taboo in every sense? Would it be blanked out in the Crufts sense of a female dog?