Thing Not To Do Today: be brutal.

I found this in the Guardian newspaper recently. It's from a review by Philip Hensher of a book by Brian Sewell called Outsider II - Always Almost: Never Quite. It's about the time when people found out that Anthony Blunt had been a spy.

'Though what Blunt did was dreadful, his treatment was brutal...[he] was stripped of his library priveleges at the Courtauld.'

The Word Den is of course a place for play and kindness, so we won't be doing anything even as brutal as taking away someone's library ticket round here.

We ll, we don't want to be like brutes, do we:








...hm. Actually, perhaps we do want us all to be like brutes.

Let's not be vicious or savage, anyway: though if you find yourself faced with a stubborn honey jar, feel free to use brute force.

Thing Possibly Not To Do Today: be brutal. This word comes from the Latin word brūtus, which means, oddly, heavy or irrational.

Does that mean that Roman fat people more irrational than thin ones, then?