They, or their ‘bland green vegetable’ counterparts were out in force over the past 12 months

Try your hand at our interactive quiz here

Henry Porter got me thinking. The acclaimed author and journalist’s recent paean to the lost art of creativity bemoaned the apparent slump in inspirational behaviour among the UK workforce. Citing ONS statistics, he pointed out that on average UK workers used only 15% of their intelligence while toiling in workplaces hobbled by an overbearing hierarchy and a pervasive lack of ingenuity.

As the harvester-in-chief of the Guardian subeditors’ favourite popular orange vegetables (Povs), however, I can offer a blinding glimmer of hope: the Pov – a sometimes peculiarly striking use of gratuitous synonyms in journalistic prose – is as tasty and bountiful as ever in 2014. Popular orange vegetables are indeed carrots, by the way. Yes, a reporter really did write this instead of using a simple pronoun. In an actual story. In a real newspaper.

The Guardian style guide describes Povs as “laboured attempts to produce synonyms by writers seeking what [HW] Fowler called ‘elegant variation’ … often descending into cliche or absurdity”.

Here, to celebrate the sustained absurdity/creative genius of the journalistic community, is the annual Mind your language quiz highlighting the finest examples of what George Orwell termed “inelegant variation”.

All the examples in the quiz were discovered online or in print in the past 12 months – or were whipped out judiciously at the editing stage as they were deemed just too ludicrous to appear in an offering by the world’s leading liberal news organisation.

Take the question-based test here

Media: Mind your language | theguardian.com http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2014/jan/06/popular-orange-vegetables-silly-synonyms