Words

Nash, n.

LITTLE DID I think that I would spot a gap in the new Canadian Oxford Dictionary. Simon Hoggart recently wrote that in Canada "I watched the National News (affectionately known as the Nash)".

I had assumed this to be a fine, pleasingly dismissive rendering of that first syllable - surely worth a place over here during the absurd palaver about News at Ten. To Canadian ears, however, it most likely has another resonance.

Look up Nash in the Dictionary (as is the current trend, partly an encylopaedia), and there is the English architect John Nash and the American poet Ogden Nash, but pride of places goes to (Cyril) Knowlton Nash. Who? "From 1978- 88 he was chief correspondent and anchor on CBC's `The National'."