HAS anyone else noticed how the meaningless and childish word “annoying” has crept in to the language of criticism? In my book, “annoying” is OK if used by a brother about their sister, and prefaced by the word “so”, but that is pretty much it.

Not long ago I watched a television programme where the Spectator columnist James Delingpole kept referring to his opponent in debate, the feminist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, as “the most annoying woman in the world”. He thought he was being funny. He wasn’t.

And I see in the Sunday Times today that the TV reviewer A. A. Gill calls the astronomer Brian Cox “annoying”. Again, I guess that Mr Gill thinks he is being funny. And it is true that he can be very funny. I mean, he is one of the most hilarious, laugh-out loud funny writers out there. But in this case, he is not.

The word simply should not be a part of any critic’s vocabulary. Did dear Oscar ever use it? I think not.

It’s the kind of word I can imagine being used by no-tal loudmouths like that empty bellowing vessel Rod Liddle. Actually I just looked up his pieces and could not find a use of “annoying”, though he did use “supremely irritating”, which is almost the same thing.

Perhaps these critics are aping Jeremy Clarkson. But his public personality is so well-defined that he probably can get away with using such a subjective adjective. But he’s the only one.

They all should all stop being so lazy with their language. Saying someone is “annoying” has no critical value whatsoever. It means nothing beyond… actually, it really does mean precisely nothing. It merely conveys a vague and undefined hostility. Like “incredible” and “amazing”, it is all right in conversation but as an adjective in writing, completely superfluous.

I will not now make the obvious joke.

TH