A dear friend of mine, slightly more interested in ornithology than orthology (one’s a bird watcher, the other a word botcher), was having a chat with me on the phone this evening. We were discussing my run in with a bluebottle (Portugeuse Man-of-War) whilst I was up on the Sunshine Coast last week, and the sudden and dramatic onset of anaphylactic shock, which followed quickly after the sting.

“You know,” said my thoughtful friend, “I’ve been thinking about it and you really shouldn’t be without an ‘Epi-pen’ thingy in your last two weeks in Australia. What if you were stung by a wasp? What if something else in the bush stings you and you get emphalactic shock?”

“Anaphylactic shock,” I corrected.

“Well,” he paused, “you may call it that but I spell it differently!”

(On the quiet, I always have to look up the spelling myself!”)