If this were a contretemps between two women, the word "catfight!" would be gleefully utilized by every reporter (as it was during the never-bettered war of words between Julie Burchill and Camille Paglia).

However, since Martin Amis and Terry Eagleton are middle-aged men (middle-aged, in Eagleton's case,...

In his brilliant new book, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, Steven Pinker devotes a chapter to metaphor, and how our language is "saturated" with it. Leaving aside the fact that "saturate" could itself be categorized as an imprecise metaphor -- after all, language...

A couple of years back, when English Muslim teenager Shabina Begum won the legal right to wear a jiljab -- a gown that covers everything except part of the face -- to school, an almost mind-boggling irony reigned over the proceedings. Having lost her case at the High Court,...