The phone rings just as I'm about to leave the house for lunch with a TV overlord, a grand fromage in the media world. It's his personal assistant. "X is going to try and get to you for 1pm. He's a little behind schedule . . ." That small word "try" gave me hope, inferred a chance that my lunch date was breaking a leg to get to me, struggling through a war-torn country or fighting off bears just to be with me as near to one o'clock as possible.

I dashed to the West End and sat alone in the bar area of The Ivy being served drinks by a pitying barman for over an hour. Finally, I called his office and spoke to his assistant again.

"I'm sorry, Lauren. X is still trying to get out of his meeting."

What's wrong with the guy? Is he being held hostage by manic-depressive producers determined to get a bigger budget for their latest show about fleeing the rat race and living in France? Or perhaps his assistant is a bunny-boiler who ditches his other female callers out of crazed jealousy . . .

Or perhaps, just perhaps, I should have stayed at home as soon as I heard the word "try" and trusted my friend's advice that the verb has taken on a new meaning. To try never means "to ascertain by experiment"; it simply means to fail or, worse still, not to bother.

How many times have I "tried" to go on a diet, or "tried" to get to the gym more often? My oldest friend has been "trying" to give up smoking for 15 years. She gave me a hell of a shock when she arrived to dinner not smelling like an ashtray full of of Rothmans butts and announced: "I have given up smoking. I am no longer a smoker." The point was, she explained to my daughter, "not to try but to succeed". OK, it was a bit evangelical and OTT, but she hasn't had a fag for eight weeks.

According to a letter I was sent via a Sunday newspaper, my misuse of the verb "try" is not the only mistake I have been making in the English language. The retired teacher (who else?) from Surrey started on a fairly pleasant note, congratulating me on my "basic common sense" on issues in my column. This was faint praise indeed. He went on, "a common sense which, I suspect, reflects what most people already say at home". Translation: even an oik in our village pub holds the same views as you - and his grammar is better! Write a thousand times on the blackboard, "Homer is a not just a cartoon character who says 'Doh' . . ."

The rest of the note concentrated on the misuse of "may" for "might" and "was" instead of "were". In the back of my head, I could hear my grandmother saying, "Those lefty teachers at your school are filling your head with anti-British, communist rubbish. They should be improving your grammar, not teaching you to question authority." What was the reason for such an outburst? Well, I was spending the money I made working at John Menzies on books about Marx, instead of "a haircut that will get you a nice boyfriend, perhaps even one from the private school in Mill Hill if you try hard enough". She and my new pen pal would have got on like a house on fire.

Roy Hattersley wrote a column the other day in the Guardian condemning the Tory MP John Bercow, who "tried" to trip up Stephen Twigg, the parliamentary secretary at the Department for Education, in the Commons by pointing out that Twigg had (horror of horrors) split an infinitive. Bercow's sort still believe that sticking rigidly to the Queen's English circa 1900, backed up by a knowledge of fine wines, is an effective base from which to command respect - and power.

Unless I learn to respect the "simple past" and "the subjunctive form" - both terms I know I should recognise but wouldn't be able to point out in a grammatical line-up - I will always be a commoner, an underling, who "tries" to do better.