Any reporter who has ever struggled to hear what is being said in a courtroom will have enjoyed Tuesday's misunderstanding between Bono and a senior lawyer.
The U2 frontman took umbrage when he heard his life described as "very pathetic" by John Rogers SC. It later emerged that the term used was "peripatetic". And while some might blame Bono's mistake on years of exposure to loud music, there can be little doubt that the invariably appalling courtroom acoustics were at fault.
Journalists can't talk, I know. It's not so long since this paper had to clarify a reported comment by the Minister for Defence, in a speech about restructuring Army facilities. The Minister had referred to an "NCO's mess" in Galway. But probably due to the intervention of a bad phone-line, the building made it into print as an "empty old mess".
Still, the Bono case pithily underlines the point made when a murder trial collapsed recently because the judge said he couldn't hear a lawyer's closing submission.
Surely it is now time to introduce microphones for all participants in court cases. From a reporter's viewpoint, this should ideally include any hecklers at the back. But at the very least, the lawyers and witnesses should be wired up. When his case is finished, maybe Bono could advise the courts service on the best techniques.
Clarifying his unintended insult, Mr Rogers said that by "peripatetic", he meant Bono's life was "a bit of a rush". The U2 singer might well have asked why the lawyer didn't say that in the first place, instead of resorting to Latin (as near as dammit) in classic legal style. But then Bono would probably have remembered his own stage name and thought better of saying anything.
Plain English is not as easy as its sounds. There's a very annoying ad on the radio at the moment that promises just that, in the particular context of computer advice. Unfortunately, the promise follows an intro that says: "Free! Free! Free! That's exactly what good advice should cost". This is not plain English, of course. It's plain wrong. A product or service may cost a noun - eg, "99 cent", "a packet", "the earth", etc. It may even cost an adverb: eg, "dearly". But I'm fairly sure it cannot cost an adjective, except in computer-speak. And even in computer speak, it can never cost exactly "free".
Others currently struggling with the English language include the restaurant owners of China, who are being targeted as part of the campaign to stamp out "Chinglish" - bad or meaningless English translations - before the Beijing Olympics. Real-life examples of what officials want banned include "corrugated iron beef", "Government abuse chicken", and "chop the strange fish".
I don't know about you, but I find those all rather charming. At least two would be accurate enough descriptions of meals I've had in Ireland at one time or another, masquerading under fancy names. In fact, if the Chinese restaurateurs are smart, they will just retitle their abused chicken as "pan-fried poulet", in a "jus" of some kind, and then double their prices.
Two notes in passing: (1) Misuse of language by advertisers should be known as "Jinglish". (2) The best menu line I've ever seen was on a board outside a well-known Dublin pub, tempting lunch-time pedestrians with the message: "Food that cannot be passed".
Pity poor Simon Curtis, who has set an unwelcome record for the lowest ever score on Mastermind's specialist subject round. He notched exactly one point on the films of Jim Carrey. And although he recovered somewhat on general knowledge, to avoid breaking the record lowest total (seven), there is a particular humiliation in knowing nothing about a subject on which you declare yourself a specialist.
His plight demonstrates why collaborative quizzes have become so popular. First we had the old-fashioned table quiz, with teams working together and submitting written answers. Then came television's Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, with its social element - asking the audience and phoning a friend. Then these two formats combined to produce the modern, mobile-phone-based table quiz, where everybody cheats and the winners are those with the most friends and the best text-messaging technique.
The pre-table pub quiz was more exposing, with oral answers and individual rounds in which you couldn't confer. I was captain of such a team once, many years ago, and my team-mates were terrified of humiliation. So before the first round, if only to calm their nerves, I copied some pages from a quiz book for them to memorise. I had a library of quiz books then and - embarrassing as it is to admit now - knew most of the answers by heart.
In other rounds, I had noticed, the quizmaster was drawing on this particular source. But it was a pure fluke when, the night we were up, he took all his questions not just from the book, but from the very pages I had copied. I was a hero to the team (until the next round, when the quizmaster changed the book); and my long nights spent learning general knowledge lists by rote had paid off.
Of course, looking back on those anorak years now, it all seems peripatetic.