I was in love with my teacher Ms H. And when I told her not to be a bitch, all hell broke loose, and there were many tears. I didn’t know it was a ‘bad word’. It got used at home frequently.

We made up at lunchtime when she gave me a sweet; I was six.

My next experience with bad words was when I wrote in a magazine many years ago about someone who was a ‘victim’ of AIDS.

I was confronted by the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power, or ACT UP, and told that patients living with HIV/AIDS found the term ‘victim’ pejorative and offensive. They kindly gave me a list of other words I must not use.