What's the Latin for Schadenfreude, then? You know: the feeling you get when some pompous politician tries to show off and falls flat on his vocabulary? Salve, Eric Pickles, the Tory MP who complained that 24-hour licensing had turned Britain's streets into “a vomitorium”. Sorry, Eric, it doesn't mean what you clearly think it means: it's a passageway in a theatre, not a receptacle for regurgitated diced carrot. Doubtless Eric is hoping that the ranks of Labour MPs are decimated at the next election, and he'd be wrong about that too. It means to reduce by ten per cent, which probably wouldn't be enough for his purposes.

Of course, I'm not inferring that he's alone. I'm loathe to point this out, but in whole swathes of Britain, hoards of people flout their ignorance of the language, abrogating their responsibility to use it correctly, utterly disinterested in whether they get it right. And before you all write in, I know: that should be implying, loath, swaths, hordes, flaunt, abdicating and uninterested.

Then there's “wherefore”, as in “Wherefore art thou Romeo?” It doesn't mean “where” (Juliet knows where he is - she can see him from the window), it means “why”: as in, “Why do I love a Montague, my family's sworn enemies?”

Other languages have their pratfalls too. Once, in a French supermarket, I asked an assistant if the garlic sausage contained preservatifs. If you're ever in Carrefour and the girl behind the traiteur counter is still giggling, that'll be her.

Times recommends

• McDonald’s: the world’s local restaurant
• Help me to be a mum: a foyer to fulfilment
• A life online: God likes a laugh