There I was, thinking yesterday about the pseudo-word 'outwith'. I know it's not in any normal English dictionary, but I thought that perhaps it's so commonplace that it ought to be. After all, if I hear someone say 'without' in the appropriate context for 'outwith', it confuses me slightly. I'm so used to hearing 'outwith'.

But apparently it's a very Scottish word, and, although it has filtered elsewhere a little (John Humphrys has a pop at it in his new book that I'm not going to bother reading but I'm sure it'll be interesting), it would seem that no - it's not a proper word.

It might be in Scotland, but personally, I don't want to sound like an idiot when I travel anywhere else. It's also why I say 'why', not 'how'. And why I'm trying my best to keep my tenses correct and keep those did's and done's in their right places - nobody told me I was making this mistake constantly until recently: "You do it all time!"; "Well, why didn't you tell me?"

The 'did' and 'done' mix-up is only really a problem for me when I speak, incidentally. Although when I'm typing quickly on IM, it can cause embarrassment too. I know the rule, it's just not immediate in my mind. I don't think I have any trouble with 'saw' and 'seen'.

And just to mention a grammatical pet hate of mine, I loathe that children are being taught (or at least appear to be) that 'I' should come after all the other names of people in a list. This implies to the child that, "Bob met Bobette and I at the cinema," is a valid sentence. It's very, very simple. If you are the subject or one of the subjects of a sentence, refer to yourself as 'I'. If you are the object or one of the objects, the preposition 'me' is used. No exemptions. If 'Bob met Bobette and me' sounds bizarre to you, you've just been miseducated.