Because this is a season for feeling peevish about so very many things.

Peeve #1: The phrase is not “been through the ringer” – it’s “been (or put) through the wringer”, with a w. Wringer comes from the Old English wringan, meaning “to press, strain, wring, or twist”, and it refers to a now pretty much obsolete laundry appliance used to extract the water from clothes that have been washed. (But if you really want one, Amazon will sell it to you.)

So looking like you’ve been “put through the wringer” means that you look like you’ve been pressed flat between the appliance’s upper and nether rollers and squeezed dry.

Which is how a lot of us feel these days – I can’t imagine why.

Peeve #2: “Diffused” and “defused.” Something is diffused when it is dispersed or spread out over a large area or in a large…