I was in the city the other day, in the course of my monthly pilgrimage to the temples of moneys (banks) to render obeisance (debts) as befits a humble servant of The System.

But in the bank precisely, there was a vicious little argument. The details are not relevant other than one party felt slurred by the other: it was a matter of who was superior Not race on this occasion - though God knows that issue has caused enough grief - they were merely from different countries, perhaps even different parts of the same country. A policeman stopped the matter with quiet efficiency and that was the end of it. But the queue was long and there was much time for thought, and here was was food for it as well.

What an unfortunate word. A superior wine: that I can understand. A superior strategy even when it isn’t. “Superior”" is working as an adjective. Superior, by itself as a noun, is wobbly. And it’s almost invariably a “first person” noun, plural or singular. A lousy noun too.

“I am superior“. So are “we”. “You” manage pretty well. But “them“? “They” do the best they can, poor things; not much going for them.

At what? It has to be qualified.

My dog is a superior tracker with his superior sense of smell and a fish is superior to me at living under water.

Superior by itself, without qualification, is usually nonsense. I’ll be picking on a few more of these words from time to time. I thought this one was a good one to start with.

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Todays quote: “If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing”. — Kingsely Amis