Brits and Americans have hundreds of different phrases for the same thing. Luckily it's usually a source of amusement rather than frustration. A flashlight by any other name is still a torch. My personal favourite is 'fairy lights ' which we boringly refer to as 'Christmas lights.'

When you translate poetry in particular you're obliged to look at how the writer with whom you're working puts together words sentences phrases the triple tension between the line of verse the syntax and the sentence.

You pick up loads of baggage with your first record with reaction to it from fans and critics. So I went to Ireland by myself for a couple of weeks with my guitar. I read lots of poetry I read Patti Smith's autobiography and started words and phrases and then songs started to take shape.

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. And if it stops moving subsidize it.

But human experience is usually paradoxical that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy.

You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.