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<< Incidentally, Jimmy, in an earlier post, you gave as examples of Words Which Should Be Shunned, “ 'retard' 'spastic' 'knacker' ” Retard and Spastic I can understand, but I’m not quite sure where the offence lies in the term, “knacker”. Am I no longer allowed to say, “I’m totally knackered,” when exhausted by the tediousness of certain discussions? Unfair to superannuated horses who glumly face being sent to the knacker’s yard? Or have I missed something? I obviously have, or Jimmy wouldn’t have bracketed “knacker” with the terms “spastic” and “retard”. Robin >> Ouch!!! A little mousing around, and I now at least see where Jimmy is coming from on this one. Apparently the noun “knacker” in Southern Irish slang isn’t remotely similar to the participial adjective that I’m fairly accustomed to using. It’s not as far as I know current in England, for which I’m tempted to say, thank the lord, as there are already more than enough prejudicial terms in English colloquial speech used when referring to travellers in general or the Romany people in particular, without adding this to the lexicon. After a short and in this case singularly unpleasant visit to urbandictionary, I now see why Jimmy bracketed it with Spastic and Retard. It would seem, in so far as I could stomach any of the virulently nasty explanations in urbandictionary, a word singularly without any redeeming qualities, and one which brings out the worst in those who chose to explain it. Robin