St Andrew's university Russian hackers is good for pedants

Well, perhaps I'm being unfair to Dame Sally. But certainly I am pedantic, cantankerous and, if a little ashamed, unafraid to impose my exact linguistic demands on others. To little success, I should add, but I try.

When the academic took post at St Andrews six years ago she came with a set of three rules: a certain email opening line was banned, an email payoff line was banned, and corduroy was banned.

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There is legend that she sent a professor at Oxford home to change after he turned up in a full corduroy suit. I don't think I could argue with a corduroy suit. Wear it in mustard and you're surely who Central Casting would send in response to a call for an academic. Double denim and we'd have words.

Presumably there was disgruntlement when these rules were introduced. Pushback, I believe the kids like to call it. No one enjoys being instructed on what they can and can't say or phrases they enjoy.

Dame Sally, however, has been vindicated. Her writing strictures have foiled an attack by hackers for the Russian state. And I plan to take Dame Sally's vindication as vindication for my own insufferable stance.

Staff at St Andrew's University are strongly discouraged from beginning emails with the phrase, "I hope this email finds you well." We don't have details on the reason for the ban but there is a glorious meme of this phrase whereby someone uses the expression and illustrates it with a photo of "how this email finds me".

The picture is usually of a cartoon character with, say, a limb hanging off or in the middle of an explosion or perhaps a skeleton. You get the idea.

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Also banned is "I trust you find this useful" at the end of emails. I'm not sure what one does if one genuinely does trust the recipient finds it useful. I suppose other forms of words are available.

Phil O'Brien, the head of the School of International Relations, received an email from his colleague, Professor Stephen Gethins, that began by hoping he was found well. For the Russians, the jig was up. The email was reported to National Cyber Security Centre at GCHQ and the hack thwarted.

The Times newspaper quotes a St Andrews insider commenting on Dame Sally's "disdain for email guff".

There are, I hope, phrases that, if used, would alert friends and colleagues to the fact I had been hacked and my identity stolen. "Reach out". If I am in a body of water and struggling to stay afloat I will likely reach out for a floatation device.

If I see Ryan Gosling wandering around my neighbourhood I will, undoubtedly, reach out and try to touch his lovely, lovely face.

Should I want to contact another person or institution, I will do just that – contact them. "Reach out" as a synonym for "contact" is the most ghastly of ghastly Americanisms. It is nonsensical, pointless and infantile. Can't bear it.

I realised I had probably taken my disdain for the phrase too far when more than one of my students at Glasgow University referenced in their reflective essays how much I hate it. I felt bad, but very briefly.

"Iconic" is another. Read almost any newspaper or online publication these days and the writers will try to have you believe that absolutely everything is iconic, from a doughnut sold by a local no-mark coffee shop to a style of shoe a Z-list celebrity wore once. I'm afraid a doughnut is not comparable to the Taj Mahal or the Venus de Milo even if the former does come with a sprinkle of caramelised bacon bites.

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One of the rules we are taught in cybersecurity training is to look out for poor or unusual spelling and grammar. But as hackers become more sophisticated so too will their phishing attempts. What better than to have strict human foibles of communication that no outsider can crack?

To my delight, I've been left in charge of overhauling The Herald's style guide. House style is a glorious thing and proper reform is a laborious process but power has been placed in extremely demanding hands.

I'm glad, though, to know that my overblown and disproportionate ire at the misuse of popular phrases comes now with a robust justification. "It's not for me," I'll say, "It's to protect us from the hackers."

Ah, correct grammar and punctuation with limited guff: the guard of sanity and the vanguard of online security.