Many, many, readers, many, many of them from Texas have written pointing out that there is no period after the ‘Dr’ in ‘Dr Pepper’. They are right. I was wrong – again. The explanation dates back to the 1950s. Your local Dr Pepper expert (who is probably from Texas) can furnish the necessary details. Otherwise just click here.

Grammar geeks with no remaining shreds of a life may be interested to know that the Pepper punctuation would also be perfectly proper in British English.

In the land of Lucozade and Irn-Bru, a period (or full stop) is only appropriate for those abbreviations where the last letter of the abbreviation differs from the last letter of the word written in full, thus ‘Doctor’ becomes ‘Dr’, but it’s ‘inc.’ for ‘incorporated.’

Here are some of the many new things that I have learned from Corner readers about this Neanderthal nectar. It is best eaten with moon pie, the bottler in Dublin (Texas) uses real cane sugar and it is a breakfast treat when drunk warm and served with okra and hushpuppies.

A number of people have suggested that the true essence of evil is a drink known as Moxie, which is, apparently, popular in Maine, the home state, I note, of Stephen King.

And that’s all I have to say about Dr Pepper. Period.