Using a well-worn expression incongruously or erroneously is a linguistic crime born of ignorance.

Perhaps I’m naive, but I didn’t expect to find it committed by a seasoned writer in this week’s Observer. In an interview about what she “knows about men”, Julie Burchill (whose name now graces our list) uses the following heinous verbal concoction:

There are lovely men and lovely women and rubbish men and rubbish women. The trick is telling the pearls from the swine before you get involved with them personally, sexually or financially.

Telling the pearls from the swine? What? What does that mean? Has she grotesquely misunderstood the meaning of the original expression, or has she resorted to borderline-malapropism in order to illustrate some sort of achingly-hip socio-political point that’s way over my head?

When in Rome…