Language change

WHITBY. Of all the watering-places upon the north-eastern coast, there is none which affords to the visitor a more agreeable union of the picturesque and the instructive than the ancient town of Whitby. The traveller who arrives by the railway from York will at once remark the singular aspect of the place, the old town clustering upon the steep eastern cliff, its red-tiled roofs rising one above another in a manner which has often engaged the pencils of our artists. The ascent to the Parish Church and the venerable ruins of the Abbey is effected by a flight of one hundred and ninety-nine steps, which the visitor of moderate strength will accomplish without fatigue, and which affords at each landing a prospect of the harbour that will amply repay the exertion. The Abbey, founded by St. Hilda in the seventh century, is justly esteemed the chief ornament of the town; and few can contemplate its lofty arches against an evening sky without emotions of a solemn and elevated character. The town is well supplied with lodgings of a respectable description, and the bathing is excellent. Ladies will find the jet ornaments, for which Whitby has long been celebrated, both elegant and moderate in price. The fisher-folk are a hardy and industrious race, civil to strangers, though their speech is not always readily understood.

Whitby: goths, gulls and the best chips of my LIFE Okay, confession time. I'd been told Whitby was 'just a fishing town with a ruined abbey'. Reader, it is SO much more than that. We rocked up on a Friday night in October and the place was absolutely heaving – Goth Weekend, obviously (no, I didn't know either). Velvet capes, top hats, a man in a full Victorian mourning outfit queuing for an ice cream. Iconic. Saturday = the 199 steps. Yes, I counted. Yes, my calves are still filing a complaint. But at the top you get the abbey, looming over the harbour like something out of a horror film (which, to be fair, it literally is – Bram Stoker got the idea for Dracula here). Pro tip: go early before the coach parties arrive. Then chips. I have eaten a LOT of chips in my 29 years and I am telling you these were next level. Crispy, fluffy, drowning in vinegar, eaten on the pier while a seagull eyed me like I owed it money. 10/10, would be mugged by a gull again. Is Whitby perfect? Nah. Parking is a nightmare and you will spend more on fudge than you planned. But if you want a weekend that's a bit spooky, a bit cosy and a lot of fun – this is your place. Have you been? Drop your fave chippy in the comments 👇

I was on the train last week, minding my own business, when two teenagers sat opposite me. For twenty minutes I listened to a conversation that consisted almost entirely of 'like', 'literally' and 'no cap'. One of them said something was 'literally the worst thing ever'. It was a sandwich. I am not a snob. I simply believe that words have meanings, and that if we let those meanings slide we lose the ability to say anything precise at all. When 'literally' means 'figuratively', it means nothing. When every sentence is padded with 'like', no thought is ever completed. Schools must take some of the blame. Teachers, terrified of seeming old-fashioned, no longer correct pupils' grammar. Social media does the rest, rewarding speed over care. The result is a generation that can send a hundred messages an hour but struggles to write a coherent paragraph. English has survived invasions, printing presses and the telephone. I am not sure it will survive TikTok.