You may have missed the recent micro-controversy concerning Schools Minister Nick Gibb. On BBC Radio 4’s World at One he was asked a grammar question from the Government’s literacy tests for 11-year-olds – and he was caught out.

Martha Kearney put the question:

“‘I went to the cinema, after I’d eaten my dinner.’ Is the word ‘after’ there being used as a subordinating conjunction or a preposition?”

Gibb plumped for “preposition” and was duly mocked, although not before making his case: “‘After’ is a preposition. It can be used in some contexts as a word that coordinates a sub-clause – but this isn’t about me.” He was wrong there, at least for a day or two. But he deserves sympathy. How many of us could answer a tricky grammar question in an oral ambush? How many could even answer it written down? How many of us would have got it right at 11 years old?