WE appear to be suffering from a serious outbreak of The Ness Virus.

You’ll have come across it in newspapers, online, TV or radio but it’s a deadly threat to basic understanding.

Scores of people – with journalists the chief culprits – are bunging the addition “ness” to all sorts of words to create nouns where other words already exist. The latest was “mendaciousness” when “mendacity” is perfectly good.

It’s come in the wake of “wellness” and “mindfulness” and, while I know these are wonderful things, all the other nesses just irritate and cause despairness about the future of the English language.