Sometimes I wonder if my mother is faking Coeliac disease just to stop me and my father from double-dipping in the margarine when we're making toast.

But that's an unprecedented level of convoluted anal retentiveness, even for my mother.

I ranted about the inclusion of the 'dh' in various fantasy words. What is with shoving an 'h' after a perfectly innocent consonant in fantasy, anyway? Has 'h' somehow become the new fashionable 'weirdifying' letter? It used to be 'y'. I don't mind things like 'kh', because that's perfectly pronouncable, but there are two options for 'dh', and I never know which one the author intended. This throws off the rhythm of my reading because whenever I see the word - such as the name of the world in my newly begun read, Beyond the Pale by Mark Anthony (a fantasy author should know better than to use a name like that). The world's called Eldh. Now, should that be 'Eld' or 'Elthe'?

And while I'm at it, what's with naming worlds? Worlds don't have names, because you name something to distinguish it from something else. Planets have names, to distinguish them from other planets. But the world has no name, it is just the world. That's how it works.

"Gee," Mum said, "and people think I'm pedantic."

I laughed. "I've just honed my nitpicks."