Brackets come in various shapes, types and names: 1 round brackets (which we call brackets, and the Americans call parentheses) 2 square brackets [which we call square brackets, and the Americans call brackets]

Manners are about imagination, ultimately. They are about imagining being the other person.

Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.

Evidently an A level in English is a sacred trust, like something out of "The Lord of the Rings". You must go forth with your A level and protect the English language with your bow of elfin gold.

The advent of the mobile phone was a disaster. We are forced to listen, open-mouthed, to other people's intimate conversations. Increasingly, we are all in our virtual bubbles when we are out in public, whether we are texting, listening to iPods, reading or just staring dangerously at other people.

Punctuation marks are the traffic signals of language: they tell us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, and stop.

After university, I got a job sub-editing and for years I was a literary editor.