Mis-spoke became a word a while ago when a politician regretted? retracted? was caught out? about something he said. There are lots of words starting with ‘mis’, such as misstep which has two meanings: you literally overbalance while walking or, figuratively, make a tactical error. Both have the sense of being accidental, not intended, while the more recent use of ‘mis’ words suggests a deliberate, even calculated, effort to distance the user from the action.

I started thinking about all this when ‘mis-remembered’ popped into my head just now while reading Murder and Mojitos. In the scene, a customer comes into the bookshop looking for a recently released book by a popular author but she doesn’t know the title. When it is established that Nicky Pellegrino is the author, the bookseller responds: ‘Ah,yes, “Murder in Italy” … ‘ This is one of the many in-jokes in the Bookshop Detectives series. The joke being, in this case, that Nicky Pelligrino writes a number of romance books set in Italy. Perhaps the book in question is the 2024 novel Marry Me in Italy.

‘Mis-think’ could be a word for a tendency to self-sabotage or let ourselves be deliberate misled (haha). Could ‘mistake’ mean to deliberately steal? (‘Oh, I mistook.’) More often ‘mis’ words seem to be used by politicians to excuse their less than ideal behaviour or to shift blame or to respond to a failure to manage a crisis. ‘Miscommunication’, ‘misappropriation’, ‘misinformation’, ‘mistakes were made’. Language is fascinating, especially when we can read between the lines for the speaker’s intentions. It’s part of critical thinking – the detective brain – which is useful, particularly now during an election campaign.