"Journalese" is the made-up word for the antics of members of my profession.

But today I am going to try to defend my colleagues across the written press.

And in true journalistic fashion, I'm going to do it by pointing out that we are not as bad as some other groups of people.

Here goes…

Literally: one word that can drive me mad, but not literally drive me mad, of course.

Commentators and television presenters use it when they clearly can't mean it.

John Motson said the other week a goal would ... quite literally have United over-the-moon.

They may have jumped for joy, but not that high!

I quite like the recent "Taste of My Life" programme with the mild-mannered Nigel Slater.

But when he said ... join me later when I quite literally fall to pieces at Tracey's jokes ... I knew he didn't mean it.

The jokes were rib-ticklers, but he was still in one piece.

Julia Sawahla, in the same series, tasted food that reminded her of her childhood and proclaimed ... I'm quite literally seven years old again.

No she wasn't, it was a piece of pie not a time machine.

Misuse of "literally" does, quite literally, have me shouting at the television!

Then there are those out there who believe you can just add "ing" to anything else and it makes a word.

No it doesn't.

A good friend of mine recently asked me what I was doing the following day. After a rather dull reply about going to the office to meet a carpet cleaner, I asked about his movements in the next 24 hours.

"I'm myttoning tomorrow," was his proud reply.

If you're not in the know, you could worry about the state of my friend's moral fibre, mental health or general wherewithal.

But I cunningly deduced he was actually playing golf at Mytton Fold.
Why did he not just say so!

Myttoning indeed! I still have a bit of a squirm before admitting to the fact I might actually be "golfing" rather than "playing golf".

Next on my personal list of pet hates among those who maul the language are those who are wise after the event.

Results-wise, things are not going our way.

Performance-wise, it could have been better.

Sober-wise, the Bank Holiday weekend was a bit of a disappointment.

Sentence-forming-wise, I'm a bit of a dead loss, is how I would sum up these particular miscreants.

It is easy to form a perfectly valid sentence out of all the above examples, but once again the laziness which has crept in to our everyday language has won the day!