Joseph Dinnage

Slang, according to Walt Whitman, is the English language's ‘lawless germinal element below all words and sentences... behind all poetry, and proves a certain perennial rankness and protestantism in speech’. One wonders what he would have made of ‘mogging’, which Collins has named word of the year. To mog is to outshine or outperform another in a certain activity, and is used primarily among Generations Z and Alpha – those born after 1997. You can be forgiven if you're unfamiliar with the term. Teenagers will always behave like teenagers and develop Polari that their parents fail to understand The word has its origins in the acronym ‘AMOG’ (alpha male of the group), which was widely used in the pick-up artist scene of the early 2000s.

England’s cricketers are developing a reputation, though not for sporting prowess. Despite dominating the Pakistanis at Headingley, the humiliation of last winter’s Ashes and a summer thrashing at the hands of the Kiwis loom large in the Barmy Army’s memories. But off the pitch, the England squad are making a name for themselves as some of the sport’s most revered hellraisers. Dealing with adults as though they are teenagers on a school trip is no way to treat a nation’s sportsmen A mere ten days after Joe Root – in his first act as returning England Test captain – ditched the curfew imposed on the squad following negative press about Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson’s nightclub antics, another player is in the doghouse.