Bertrand Thesaurus, an English teacher at Bembridge Secondary Academy, Isle of Wight, said yesterday that he was "shocked and appalled" at the limited vocabulary used in recent reactions to news stories.
"It's really frustrating, when I spend all day lecturing my classes about the riches of the English language," complained Thesaurus, 57. "I mean, we have had a whole series of astounding, overwhelming, numbing, outrageous, abominable, atrocious, awful, desperate, direful, disgraceful, disgusting, disquieting, distressing, dreadful, fearful, formidable, foul, frightful, ghastly, glaring, hateful, heinous, hideous, horrible, horrific, horrifying, loathsome, monstrous, nauseating, odious, offensive, repulsive, revolting, scandalous, shameful, sickening, stupefying, terrible, ugly, unspeakable things in the news recently.
"But what do we get every time? Shocked and appalled. Hacking scandal? Shocked and appalled. Pop star dies? Shocked and appalled. Norweigan massacre? Shocked and appalled. It's not good enough, I tell you," fumed the tweed-jacketed teacher, wiping a fleck of foam from the corner of his grimacing mouth.
"I mean to say, this is the country of William sodding Shakespeare, bloody Byron and Andrew poetry in pissing Motion. What have we come to? It's the politicians who are the worst - they're supposed to be educated. But they're contemptible, despicable, shameful, abhorrent, abject, abominable, base, beggarly, cheap, crass, currish, degenerate, despisable, detestable, hateful, ignoble, ignominious, inferior, low-down, odious, paltry, pitiable, sad, scummy, shabby, sordid, swinish, unworthy, vile, worthless, wretched..."
As Mr Thesaurus was led away by nurses, his Head Teacher Mrs Freda Whales apologised. "I'm so sorry about my colleague's outburst. I'm shocked and appalled at his behaviour."