There is a definite pleasure to correcting other people’s grammar. Catching someone out when they speak or write incorrectly, especially if that person is regarded as clever or of a higher status than you, gives an instant thrill. This is most evident whenever any celebrity fails in their syntax on Twitter, and people in their droves immediately leap on the opportunity to point out their error. Just for that one moment you have ‘beaten’ them, you are cleverer than this columnist, or novelist, or whoever it is that has misspoken or mistyped. For most of us, this is an occasional occurrence, a rare moment of point scoring which is quickly forgotten.

For some, however, it appears to be almost a full-time job constantly to upbraid those around them for failing to use ‘whom’ or splitting an infinitive. It seems actually to offend them that others fail to speak according to their standards. These are the ‘grammar police’ – and their calling is to boldly go (they won’t like that) in search of the linguistic errors that plague our conversation and tell everyone just how wrong they are.