Until I got to dinner this evening, the only thing I’d eaten all day was hot cross buns. A bun (rather too hot, straight out of the oven) for breakfast, another for elevenses, a couple for lunch and about a quarter of a commercial bun after this afternoon’s reflective service at church. That isn’t a recommended diet and I did have a proper dinner later but it is the day for hot cross buns.

It did get me musing on those words. I realised that I tend to think of them as “hotcrossbuns”, as if it were a single word. However, the truth is that they are buns, with a cross on them (traditionally only the Good Friday batch) that are often served hot (and ideally slathered with salty butter). The one I had for supper tonight wasn’t hot so I probably should have just called that a “cross bun”. Each of the words should be bringing something to the table, otherwise it just becomes a portmanteaux, empty of meaning.