Rotten to the core

Potato farmers held a noisy protest outside Parliament today to get the term "couch potato" removed from the Oxford English dictionary, claiming it harms the vegetable's image.

Potatoes are sensitive creatures, and their TV watching habits are nobody's business. Why should they be singled out for sneering disapproval?

The answer, of course, is that they are not. Nuts also get bad press, and are planning to join a new march on Parliament to demand that derogatory definitions of the word nut be removed from the dictionary, along with the derogatory definitions of, nutty, nutter, nuthouse, and all the other derivatives that imply that nuts are, well, nuts. They may well be, but it is insensitive to call attention to it like that. Nuts do not like it.

The nuts will be joined by lemons, who are extremely hurt by the implication that they do not deliver what they promise. There is nothing defective about lemons, most of the time. And if there is, it is rude to say so.

In fact, vegetables and fruit, generally, are planning to protest about the way they are abused in the English language. After all, why would a person whose brain does not function properly be called vegetative? This implies that vegetables are somehow defective. They are not, or at least most of them are not. This terrible slur must be removed from the dictionary, they say, and they intend to make their feelings clear. Also, fruit are not gay. Well, not all of them are, and in any case it is none of your business if they are.

In short, the fruit and vegetable movement is about to get underway. The potato protest was the thin edge of the wedge. Fruit and vegetables are up in arms at the way they are being maligned, and a system that allows a few bad apples ruin their reputation is, they claim, rotten to the core.



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