Words

WHAT GOES through couch-potatoes' minds when an episode of something is announced by cable companies as "all-new" - a phrase not in the OED - but proves to be a rerun? Even if it were a fresh instalment, it should be described as brand-new or fire-new, for an all-new episode suggests that others - weirdly - must be partly new and somehow incorporate stock footage which would give every narrative an unlikely, Groundhog Day-twist.

But, no, the prevalence of this claim in America has led to complaints - and to one cable company's chief making the bizarre explanation that all-new means an episode not previously shown by that company - as if anybody were enthralled by a particular transmitter. Let us resist a phrase which could creep here.