The Diary is touched to learn that the British Potato Council wants “couch potato” removed from the dictionary because the expression is damaging the vegetable’s image.
The potato is low in fat and high in vitamin C, the council points out.
(Yes, but what does it look like? Are they proposing to redesign it?) “Couch slouch” is the expression the council wants instead.
But Diary feels the potato-growers are not casting their harvesters wide enough. What about the word “vegetable”? Can carrots stand straight when compared to a person “incapable of normal intellectual activity” or “living a monotonous life?” The dictionary should remove these hurtful connotations from “vegetable“and switch them to - oh, “MPs” or something. Now they really look do like couch potatoes.
