Unlikely as it may seem, I did once climb a very small mountain, Mt Pigeonhouse. There is a bus-stop at the top but no bloody bus came, and I waited for ages! So I climbed down again, the characteristic human position.

However, I did not 'summit', I simply reached the bloody top, alright!

Stop turning nouns into verbs without the approval of experts! Stop it at once, as my old teacher used to say.

PETER THE PROOFER IS VERY STRICT WITH VERBS!
​HE CAN EDIT YOUR TEXTS BACK TO LIFE!

Look, I am just getting over the persistence of 'critiquing' as a verb. The verb is 'criticise'! Anyway, I've lost that one. Everybody critiques everything now, with of course a total lack of effect.

I suppose I should just be grateful that 'deconstruct' has been dropped.

But we can still stop 'referencing' in its tracks, can't we? Help!

PETER THE PROOFER IS MORE PEDANTIC THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE!
​HE CAN SAVE ANY TEXT FROM OBLIVION.

Look, we'll probably all have insects in our diets in a hundred years. Cheap, fast-growing protein is bound to be exploited on a mass scale some time.

Nevertheless, that will not impress strict Buddhists, who often sieve drinking water carefully to ensure that not even a mosquito wriggler ends up in their gut's acid bath.

Entomophagy is just as bad as slaughtering a cow to them. It's not as messy though.

PETER THE PROOFER IS JUST A CLICK AWAY!
​HE TAMES ANY TEXT!

The verb is administer, OK?

For us, it should be westminster really. 'Administration Westminsters Itself Into Scandal' sounds like a good headline!

PETER THE PROOFER IS ONE CLICK AWAY!

Before mass media, public shaming required a lot of gossip and maybe a skimmington.

A skimmington was a parade to shame somebody in mediaeval England, so named after the skimming ladles used to whip the shamed one. Traditional targets were adulterous husbands and nagging wives.

We have Twitter now, and nagging wives are the new aristocracy, so that leaves you, Harvey and Kevin!

NEED UPDATING?
​PETER THE PROOFER WILL DRAG YOU OUT OF THE MIDDLE AGES!

In the old Maori language used in Aotearoa, our NZ cousins call a nose-rubbing welcome a hongi and a pit barbecue a hangi.

They are both warm, that's for sure.

If you encounter Maori people and they give you a hongi and a hangi, you are in for a great time. If, on the other hand, they do that war haka with the throat-cutting gesture, run away quickly unless you are watching the All Blacks!

Anyway, the British Empire arrived and now these words are part of English too. The sun will never set on the English language, even if England itself is a shrinking state of mind!

VEXED BY VARIATIONS IN VOCABULARY?
PETER THE PROOFER IS HERE FOR YOU!

Good grief, here we go again, 'abolishment' is not a word! The noun from 'abolish' is 'abolition', OK?

'Abolishment' is an abomination which doesn't even use less letters. It has no excuse for existence!

Right, after that admonition (wait- is that admonishment? I'm getting confused) you can go back to the good old-fashioned nouns and behave! Any slip-ups and you will all be on detention. Don't even get me started on 'detainment'!

MUDDLED BY MALAPROPISMS?
PETER THE PROOFER WILL SAVE YOU!

And it's gold, gold, gold as the Aussie medals.

What? Medal is a noun, not a verb! Not anymore. You can now medal by winning a medal.

I really don't want to consider the military version! When you medal in the defence forces, you're quite often dead or horribly wounded.

I think I'll just stick to meddling.

DAZED AND CONFUSED?
​PETER THE PROOFER WILL KEEP HIS HEAD!

It doesn't sound that way, does it?

From the Greek, a happy ending.

The cynic might remark that it might be good but it's still a eucatastrophe. Like euthanasia, it might be a good death but you're still dead!

IS IT ALL GREEK TO YOU?
​PETER THE PROOFER WILL SAVE HOI POLLOI!

No, no, no, I am getting old! Agreeance is not a word!

This innovation has nothing to recommend it. It's not shorter, it's not clearer, it's not anything but wrong. The word is 'agreement', dammit.

Mind you I never understood that other abomination, 'admittance'. This could often be seen written ('No Admittance') in gold paint on wooden doors in past decades. Nobody ever spoke the word though, which had a calming effect on me I suppose.

NEED A PEDANT?
​PETER THE PROOFER COULD TEACH THE QUEEN THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH!