Sir, - The Irish Times , like all other newspapers these days, is full of fulsome apologies and tributes. I'm never quite sure what to make of them. My Concise Oxford Dictionary defines fulsome as:
"cloying, excessive, disgusting by excess (of flattery, servility, exaggerated affection)".
My Collins Concise adds "insincere" to the set of meanings.
When The Irish Times and other newspapers describe someone's apology as being "fulsome", do they mean insincere, cloying, excessive - or do they mean the opposite? The context usually suggests the latter, in which case they don't know the meaning of the word.
Alternatively, they do know the meaning of the word but the people quoted as apologising don't, mistaking cynicism for praise. - Yours, etc.,
Michael Counahan, Gowrie Park, Glenageary, Co Dublin.