‘Palindrome’ has been part of the English language since 1636 and means (as you know) a word or phrase that reads the same letter-for-letter backwards and forwards. (The Adelaide suburb of Glenelg is a classic palindrome.) It comes from a Greek source word meaning ‘running back again’. But the problem is that ‘palindrome’ is not itself a palindrome. Keith Potger (yes, that Keith Potger, co-founder of The Seekers) has written to me suggesting a new word that solves this problem. He wants us to rename the palindrome with his new word ‘mynonym’.This would be pronounced MINN-OH-NIMM and have exactly the same meaning (backwards and forwards). He tells me he created this from ‘synonym’ by switching the first letter from S to M. Will this catch on? Perhaps. But only if others take it up and start using it. Keith tells me it has already appeared in print a couple of times, and he is hoping others start promoting his idea for turning ‘palindrome’ into a real palindrome. Well, now I’ve told you. If you like the idea, you can practise the pronunciation and start dropping ‘mynonym’ into your conversation whenever you encounter what you used to call a palindrome (which, let’s be honest, is not all that often).

Clearly, there are Australians around us who hate Australia and Australians. They keep calling us colonialist and/or racist. They keep welcoming us to our own country because they think we don’t belong here. And they clearly hate what we’ve done with the place. The late great Roger Scruton coined a word to label those who hate their own country: ‘oikophobia’. He drew this from two ancient Greek words: ‘oikos’ meaning household and ‘phobos’ meaning fear. (Although the Oxford points out that the suffix ‘-phobia’ can mean either fear or intense dislike.) Scruton wrote an academic paper entitled Oikophobia in which he criticised the sort of education that taught children to hate their national home – the nation and the people among whom they were born, and in which they grew up. To instil ‘oikophobia’ in small children is to destroy their pleasure and pride in their own country. It can even drive a wedge between children and their parents. The people who seem to suffer most from the soul-destroying emotion of ‘oikophobia’ are those of the hard left. It seems the Greens political party, and the left wing of the Labor party, don’t like Australia, and they don’t want anyone else to like Australia. They suffer from this crippling fear and hatred, and they want to infect as many other people with it as possible. So, love your home, love your country, and beware of the dangers of ‘oikophobia.’