Somewhere or other today, I read a description of Fosca as 'winsome'. The dictinary definition is "charming in a naive or childlike way", which would be fine, but currently, more often than not the word tends to be used pejoratively.
I recall that Alan Bennett takes particular umbrage when the term is applied to him. One story goes, that, when an interviewer used the word, Mr Bennett replied "Winsome? Lose some", and promptly got up and left.
