Inevitably we have been to the land of her fathers, a verdant week highlighted by a midsummer night's dream trip down the 57-mile Cambrian Coast railway line from Pwllheli to Machynlleth, the back shift sun shimmering over the sea.

The return fare was £3.70. Why can't they offer something similar on the last round run along the Esk Valley, 5.36pm from Middlesbrough?

To many in that part of the principality, Welsh remains a first language, the local papers balancing a little unsteadily between the two. The Cambrian News offered a page of village paragraphs entirely in Welsh, save for three lines from Nefyn, egregiously English.

"The police were informed after a plank was removed from one of the community council's benches located at Y Groes."

Clearly there is not much news, or much crime, in Nefyn. But as perhaps they say in the Brondanw Arms in Llanfrothen, whatever can it mean?

BACK home on Darlington railway station, we bump into one of the region's new MPs, heading off to the Commons and clutching a parliamentary travel warrant.

Though our Honourable Friend is travelling first class, the warrant's small print makes it clear that holders may travel either first or standard.

So how many Labour members - or, indeed, the other sort - crowd into second class with the proletariat? "I think Tony Benn used to," says the entraining MP, but is unable to think of any others. Tony Benn retired at the last election. The House of Commons may be entirely upper class at last.

John Briggs and Lynn de Prator - they of the Dave Clark Five Fan Club - are back in Darlington from the ersatz English pub in Salou, though (indicatively) they forget its name.

They won the quiz, anyway, the only Spanish fly in the ointment that the prize was a measly bottle of wine which proved wholly undrinkable and was brought back home instead.

"It proved great in the gravy," says Lynn.

Brian Madden, another of the Gadfly Irregulars - Darlington lad, former landlord of the Ball Alley pub at Shield Row, Stanley - has followed his heart to America.

"Alas I will be unable to take up the invitation to play in your 5s and 3s team next season," he writes, a case - as the French would have it - of cherchez la femme. There is love, not just electricity, on the Internet.

Barely berthed, Brian e-mails a bit from the local paper about a road sign that reads: "Road closed accept for local traffic." Americans, apparently, find it almost impossibility to distinguish between "accept" and "except".

"As many times as we drill the tenth and ninth grades they still make the same mistake," says Michelle Pender, English teacher at Stamford High.

The reporter stood by the sign and asked departing students what they made of it. Nine out of ten could see nothing wrong. We are in no state to talk, of course.

So most of the awaiting mail, ethereal and closer the surface, concerns our affronts to the English language. Many readers have additionally asked for copies of the "Traditional punctuation poem" we mentioned last time; most should ere now have received it.

"I'm over 70, perhaps the old dog might pick up a few tricks," writes Alan Keith from Farringdon, Sunderland. "It's desperately needed at work," admits another reader.

After the last column (June 13) there was also a note from someone called Jacqui in Crook admitting ownership of the car registered D4RLO.

"I'm a BIG Quakers fan," she says in capitals, though whether measured in avoirdupois or enthusiasm we have thus far been unable to discover.

Alittle closer to home, the ever-vigilant Tim Grimshaw from North Shields fell into the Cresswell Arms at Newbiggin-on-the-Sea in Northumberland - but not before photographing the sign above the window. "Last pub before Norway," it says, and an awfully long way to find out if they're right.

Recent columns have also been inserting hyphens, though not in Newcastle upon Tyne. Anne Brown, at school there, was taught that whilst the city was correctly hyphen free, Newcastle-on-Tyne was hyphenated. She may have been taught incorrectly.

Tom Purvis, gazetteer gazing, points out that though Stockton-on-Tees is correct - as is Stockton-on-the-Forest, near York - Stockton on Teme near Worcester has no such cumbersome connections.

From Hunwick, in any case, Jean Foster springs to the harassed hyphen's defence. "Before you dismiss it completely," she writes, "just think of the difference its presence (or absence) makes in extra-marital sex."

Rather like the Americans, Mr J Robinson in Darlington reckons that reporters don't know the difference between "assume" and "presume" - it would be foolhardy to presume otherwise - and that George Bowman Ramage, his English master at Bishop Auckland Grammar School, would be turning in his grave.

Janet McCrickard from Darlington points out that "evangelist" is an anagram of evil's agent and believes it may be appropriate; Alan Ebbs - Middlesbrough lad, now in France - notes that the French word for those little address labels atop a letter is an "etiquette" and wonders why it's the same as the English for good manners; Clarice Middleton in Richmond brings this semantic smuggery lurching lamentably to a halt.

Once again, she says, we have used the word "circumlocute" when meaning circumnavigate. Once again she is quite right. This time it was in describing the fairground ducks at North Cowton, but there's an awful lot of it going around.

"I think you should stay in after work and write the correct definition 100 times," says Clarice. Indefinable and indefensible, it is impossible to argue.

...and one for the winding road. Returning from Holland - where they strew apostrophes just as liberally, particularly in pizza's and chip's - Paul Dobson from Bishop Auckland teases his spellcheck with the name "Amos".

Aghast, the mendacious machine offers "amuse" instead. It is true what they say, you should never trust a computer.

Published: 27/06/2001