"Key"

[prism]

...is a noun. I am currently grieving for all the perfectly good adjectives that could have been used, usually in news reports, instead of "key", the red squirrel of the descriptive forest.

Every day.

That's all.

Sorry. It's also a perfectly acceptable adjective (albeit over-used in news reports) and a verb. You can't halt language.

Red squirrels are quite rare.

Duh. I meant grey squirrels, of course. The agony of listening to the monoadverbial world had altered the balance of my mind.

In what sense? Key what?

I think you're going to have to use it in a sentence.

Clearly nobody else on this thread has noticed the over-use or misuse of the word "key" in advertising...

Maybe once you point it out we'll hear it all the time!

You can key a surface before gluing or painting.

Why do you not think it can be an adjective or a verb?

To key a surface is not the way we hear 'key' used every day! BBC news reports, for example, are littered with "The key point of the speech was..." etc etc

But it doesn't annoy me as much as creeping Americanisms - Hayley on Corrie last night saying things like "run it by me" and "hold up" when the Hayley I know (!) would say "have a look" or "hang on". There were several things that really grated. They are like people in Downton using modernisms.

To key a surface is not the way we hear 'key' used every day!

Maybe you don't, maybe others do.

Maybe if they work in B&Q!

Someone keyed our car last year - is that any help?

Language changes. You cannot stay in the past with it.