Friday 6 February 2009

Fulsome Misprision Blues

And yet another thing... I've noticed that the BBC line - on paper and when vocalised by the ghastly Jay Hunt creature - is that Carol T had to go because she failed to deliver a 'fulsome' apology. This is what 'fulsome' means, and I don't think even the likes of Jay Hunt would consider such an apology tremendously useful. What the catachrestic BBC meant was 'full', but that blunt monosyllable didn't seem strong enough to convey just how full, so they reached for the beefier-sounding 'fulsome'. It's an increasingly common misusage - I've even seen it applied to bodily features ('fulsome lips' etc) - and I suspect the word 'fulsome' might well be migrating towards meaning nothing more than very full, fuller than full, super-full - just like the apology that, to the scandal of the BBC and the relief of the rest of us, never came.

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