Yes, sir!: Queen Elizabeth II gave more...

Yes, sir!: Queen Elizabeth II gave more than a few of her subjects a regal start for the New Year, announcing she will knight author V. S. Naipaul, elevate actress Maggie Smith to a dame (the female equivalent of knighthood) and honor police and rescue workers in the search for victims of bombed Pan Am Flight 103. David Lange, New Zealand’s former prime minister whose anti-nuclear stance put him at odds with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was made a companion of honor, another prestigious order.

Word alert: Lake Superior State University in Michigan has released “The 1990 New Year’s Dishonour List of Words Banished from the English Language for Mis-, Mal-, or Over-use, as Well as General Uselessness.” The phrase to impact received the most nominations. Two other nouns, used as verbs, were popular nominees-- fax and messenger . (As in “Fax me a copy, will ya?” or “Messenger that right over!”) Redundancy alerts also were issued for close proximity, exact same and 24 hours a day.

Reefed: Former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart may be relieved. Monkey Business, the yacht that helped sink his 1988 Democratic Presidential aspirations, is on sale for $1.5 million. Capt. Butch Vogelsang said notoriety from Hart’s trip to Bimini with Donna Rice hurt business aboard his 83-foot yacht, which became a household name in 1987, when Rice was photographed sitting on Hart’s lap during a cruise; that picture surfaced after published reports that Hart and Rice spent a night together at the candidate’s Washington, townhouse. The revelations forced Hart to withdraw from the race. Vogelsang remembers the trip: “I’ll tell you what happened. Nothing. Hart didn’t do anything with the girls. A captain knows what goes on on the ship. . . . If anything, Hart acted so naive. He just kind of stood around.”