`Chat show where the words are the stars'.

Byline: enis Kilcommons ,

Victoria Cohen, the presenter of the BBC television series Balderdash and Piffle, says, "Every time you use an English word it whispers a little story."

And it is a story that is told around the world as English is the dominant language on the planet.

Alex Games, author of the book of the same name that accompanies the TV programme, says: "English is the most widely spoken language in the world today, used regularly by over 700 million people in over 100 countries.

"A recent survey found that more than four fifths of all international organisations use English as either their main, or one of their main, operating languages and that more than 80 percent of all internet home pages are written in English."

So it is right to make a fuss over the richness of a language that allowed Chaucer and Shakespeare to give full reign to their poetry and literary skills, entertain generations and get away with using vulgarity in its purest form. But more of that later.

Today, we seem to have gone past the obsession with Oxford English, BBC English and Received Pronunciation. Even the Queen's English is no longer accepted as the proper way to use our language, but then it never was. The Queen's English in Victoria's day probably had a Teutonic accent - German was her first language. And our present queen's English is hardly standard use with "hice" for house and "clorth" for cloth.

This is because it is a living entity that develops, embraces and adapts new words while clinging on to its past with surprising tenacity.

Author Games points out that Samuel Johnson was probably right when he said any attempt to "fix" the language was doomed to failure. Not that people haven't tried.

Which brings us to rude words.

"People who swear, say disproving parents, are just displaying their lack of vocabulary," says Games.

Au contraire, you might say. It's an indelible part of the rich tapestry of our linguistic history. In fact some words can be traced back to the Bible. Remember Sodom and Gomorrah?

Chaucer's work is littered with bawdiness and 13th century street names in York and London spared no blushes by using the greatest taboo word of them all. They have been changed in the intervening years.

Shakespeare frequently referred to the same word and a euphemism that developed is now totally acceptable because people fail realise its origin from rhyming slang.

Edinburgh doctor Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825) was so incensed with Shakespeare's bad language he produced a 10 volume edition of Family Shakespeare by removing any words that might be offensive. He gave up on Othello.

His work was so widely acknowledged that his name became well known. "He proved so zealous at expurgating texts that to bowdlerize means just that."

Attempts to remove what were considered unsuitable words continued through the 19th century as society became more genteel. A strange obsession for respectability, one might think, considering the poverty in which most people lived and the prevalence of child prostitution. Even Gulliver's Travels was cleaned up for Victorian children.

Games writes, "This book is about words and where they come from. It is not a dictionary an encylopaedia, manual or a text book. It is, rather, a bit like a chat show."

And a fascinating one, at that.

(Balderdash and Piffle by Alex Games. BBC pounds 12.99).