What’s the show about?
I’m not a prescriptive linguist, I’m a descriptive one – my show is about how we should learn the rules of language, but then smash them up and break them to find their beauty.
Do you want to invent words sometimes?
Frequently, eg mulled wine is Christmas ‘tastonified’.
What’s the funniest thing you have ever read?
When in China, we went to a bar called ‘Rave Of Disco Club Dancing Night’ where tipsy children danced to Whigfield’s Saturday Night on repeat. If it was a film it would have been called Requiem For A Nightmare.
We’d only gone because we missed cider, but once trapped in this hellhole, we opened the drinks menu and under ‘Cider’ it simply listed ‘Smirnoff Ice’.
What’s the most commonly misunderstood word?
The most frequently mispronounced word is mispronunciation. But then I’m listening more for the irony. And irony, thanks to Alanis Morissette, is the most misused.
Lost In Laughter. Sept 9. £5 SW8 2JU
Station | Wandsworth
lostinlaughter.co.uk
