The singer Charlotte Church is the latest recruit to the campaign against “austerity”, a word that increasingly has one meaning: cuts in public spending.It was not always thus. The adjective “austere”, which came first, has its source in the Greek austeros, which meant figuratively “bitter” or “harsh” but literally “making the tongue dry”: it was used of unripe fruit or rough wine. It passed through Latin into Old French with that literal meaning intact, but acquired other figurative meanings along the way: “severe” or “merciless” or “furious” (of a person); “strict”, “harsh”, “ascetic” (of a way of life); “simple” or “plain” (of abstr