Words are not themselves a reality, but only representations of it, and the King’s English, like the Anglo-French of the Normans, is a class representation of reality. (para. 16) Perhaps it is worth trying to speak it, but it should not be laid down as an edict , and made immune to change from below. (para. 16) There is no worse conversationalist than the one who punctuates his words as he speaks as if he were writing, or even who tries to use words as if he were composing a piece of prose for print. (para. 18) When E.M. Froster writes of “the sinister corridor of our age,” we sit up at the vividness of the phrase, the force and even terror in the image . (para. 18) There would have been no conversation the other evening if we had been able to settle at once the meaning of “the King’s English.” (para. 20)