Line handily sums up people’s bewilderment at state of world, but it isn’t quite what the Marxist thinker wrote

At a time when geopolitical certainties of old are crumbling away, it has become the go-to quote to make sense of the current moment in all its seeming senselessness. “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters” is a line attributed to the former Italian Communist party leader Antonio Gramsci.

Over the last two months alone, it has been quoted – and often mangled – by a rightwing Belgian prime minister, a leftwing British political leader, an Irish central banker and in the title of the most recent BBC Reith lecture, given by the author Rutger Bregman.

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© Photograph: Fototeca Storica Nazionale./Getty Images

© Photograph: Fototeca Storica Nazionale./Getty Images

© Photograph: Fototeca Storica Nazionale./Getty Images

Exclusive: Countdown lexicographer urges families to read, talk and play word games to help language development

• Susie Dent’s tips and tricks to add muscle to a child’s vocabulary

Children’s vocabulary is shrinking as reading loses out to screen time, according to the lexicographer Susie Dent, who is urging families to read, talk and play word games to boost language development.

The Countdown star’s warning comes as the government prepares to issue its first advice to parents on how to manage screen use in under-fives, amid concerns that excessive screen time is damaging children’s language development.

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© Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Images

© Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Images

© Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Images

A non-Japanese-speaking first-time visitor used Apple’s new in-ear translation feature to connect with locals at bars, sushi classes and even a fire ritual.

© Wenjia Tang