A Secret Scandal: a rant.

The idea of a secret scandal is, of course, nuts (if it's secret then there's, obviously, no scandal) but that's more or less what we're having in Britain at the moment.

A prominent businessman has been accused of the sexual harassment and bullying of employees, but, as he has obtained a court order preventing his name from being reported in the press, nobody knows who he is...or, at least, no one would if someone hadn't announced his name in the House of Lords (you can't sue someone for saying that sort of thing in Parliament).

One factor in this man's success at obtaining his court order is that the accusing employees have received money from him in return for a promise not to tell anyone about the alleged harassment and bullying.

I don't know what this man is said to have done, but on BBC Radio 4 the other day a newsreader twice spoke of a nun-disclosure agreement.

The mind, frankly, boggles.

Word To Pronounce Correctly Today: non. Perhaps this word is pronounced nun in some places in the world (the newsreader in question comes from Jamaica). The word non comes from the Latin nōn, which my Latin teacher would have pronounced nohn, to rhyme with bone, but which most people would rhyme with gone.