The Spectator Reports: Each time an American institution commits a new corruption of the English language in the name of ‘social justice,’ US wire services, assisted by the internet, circulate the latest absurdity to the four corners of the world. Nearly everyone I know has commented on the University of Southern California School of Social Work’s recent ban on the use of ‘the field’ when referring to the world outside the classroom because it might have ‘connotations for descendants of slavery or immigrant workers that are not benign.’

In my circle of friends we laughed, a bit ruefully, and increasingly so do a few mainstream publications such as the Week, which headlined its item ‘Only in America.’

​I tend to take these assaults on speech and writing more seriously than some of my colleagues, but I still have hope that the current tide of inanity and language abuse will inevitably ebb in the wake of this latest stupidity. Surely, I tell myself, ridicule from libertarian comedians like Dave Chapelle and Ricky Gervais, and eyerolling from national news editors, will win the day and halt the suffocating campaign to drive meaning, metaphor and colloquialism out of the language of Shakespeare.