Adjectives that should be banned

Sir, – Another one to add to Frank McNally’s banned list (An Irishman’s Diary, June 14th) might be “prestigious”. Once described by Kingsley Amis as “an adjective of last resort”, it has become ubiquitous. The use of it – usually in marketing literature – makes me distrust the (very) noun that it is supposed to be qualifying. I was tempted to start that last sentence with “paradoxically” but fear that your readers might be offended by the use of hanging adverbs; I wonder what views Frank McNally has on the latter. – Yours, etc,

LOUISE TOBIN,

Featherbed Lane,

Kinsale,

Co Cork.