The Pretentious Verb

Ian McMillan explores and delights in pretentiousness - in language and in writers. What do we mean when we say a piece of writing or a performer is pretentious?

Ian's guests include the poet Luke Wright who shares a tour de force poem in defence of pretentiousness and pretentious things (eg children called 'Hopscotch and Entwhistle', 'carpaccio of stoat' smeared across a brick, 'tweedy too-short trousers' ). Also on the programme, the spoken word poet Jenny Lindsay delves deep into the art of the humblebrag (the pretence of self-deprecation, most frequently spotted on social media ) with a brand new poem. Angie Hobbs, (Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield) takes us back to Ancient Greece to talk about pretentious sandal-wearing on the part of great philosophers' acolytes - and she explains how Plato, the founding father of Western philosophy shows his teacher Socrates dealing with pretentious orators. And finally writer and critic Tomiwa Owolade explores the advice given by George Orwell on how to avoid pretentious prose - and finds out whether Orwell always followed his own advice.