When you spend time in a busy office, working with intelligent, erudite colleagues, you like to think some of their intelligence and erudition rubs off on you.

If you're working alongside someone like John Humphrys (as I did in a former incarnation as a thinking person, with a brain which could be programmed to do more than prepare mashed up meals for baby Rugrat and frequently load washing machine), you cannot fail to be impressed with the speed and sleight of his hand, as he whips up a script which succinctly encapsulates the cream of a story and peppers it with eloquence and light humour.

And you hope, that by the gradual process of osmosis, some of his peppered eloquence will seep into your own humble scripts.

But when you're on your own in a boot cupboard, which now serves as your office, and work in between blending carrots and parsnips, you find that even the language you use to describe the quality of work of heavyweight journalists takes on a light, fluffy, cookery la Nigella tone.

And when the only wit around you comes in the form of an eight-month-old blowing raspberries to make you laugh it's hard to say with hand on Dyson (no time for putting it on heart if you're multi-tasking) that you feel truly inspired by your surroundings (surroundings being both material as well as human).

In fact since most of the humans I come into contact with these days are either under five or @btinternet.com (bar those I sometimes chat to on the telly - Oprah likes the odd word every now and then), my language cannot be said to gain much from those around me.

In fact, having spent the last ten days (Easter holidays) solely in the company of Rugrats, it is probably fair to say that the language I use has taken on a decidedly elementary tone.

"Baggies?" said the woman in Sainsbury's looking as if I was only a pineapple short of a fruit salad. "Baggy what exactly?"

"Just plain ones," I replied, wondering why she looked as if she was about to call security. "Lemon and raisin will do though if you don't have plain."

Fortunately at this point, eldest Rugrat came to my rescue, explaining to Mrs Sainsbury that by baggies I meant pancakes, which is what middle Rugrat has been calling them since she was able to mutter and the whole family has also taken to saying.

It's the same with choyluck (chocolate), earthquates (earthquakes), gargie (dolls) and every other word which they get slightly wrong (or in the case of gargies very wrong indeed).

Instead of being good parents and gently correcting them so their language progresses at least beyond the abilities of Donald Rumsfeld, we simply smile at their endearing approximations of words and then add them to our own vocabulary, forgetting, when we are outside the four walls where it is safe to use them, to revert to proper grown-up speech.

A few days ago we adopted a new expression, "spoiling up" - i.e. "don't spoil up the game," "don't spoil up my puzzle," and "she's spoiling up the Brussels". The latter we particularly liked as it referred to the things on a toothbrush that you do the brushing with.

So taken was I with the idea of "spoiling up," - after all we "mess up" so why not "spoil up?" - that I've been using it as often as possible ever since.

It took the editor of the Sunday supplement which I regularly freelance for to point out that this is not always appropriate.

"Lizzie," she e-mailed. "You wrote that the smoking ban in NY spoilt up your chances of having a good time.

"May I just point out that you do not spoil up chances, nor do you divide the spoil ups of war, though if, you keep adopting the mistakes made by your children, instead of beating them into correct use of grammar, I suspect they will become spoilt up themselves ..."