Where the language of hype meets Mail readers' credulousness. As these examples from the last three weeks show, the Mail has a low threshold for what constitutes a miracle:

‘Miracle’ spot cure beloved by U.S. celebs set to cause a storm when it goes on sale at Boots this week
Priced at £39.99 — cheaper than a souvenir from Lourdes. Jesus prefers Superdrug.

Mother's 'miracle' baby saves her life after doctors spot cervical cancer day before birth
Spotted by a midwife (not credited).

Miracle as girl, 5, is pulled from house flattened by avalanche that killed her parents and seven other relatives
Located by a rescue team.

Miracle police officer who survived bullet to the head returns home to wife and baby daughter (and a surprise visit from Giants star Justin Tuck)

Now THAT'S a lucky escape! Miracle as driver survives 4x4 being flattened by 20-tonne boulder on French Alps road

'It's a miracle I'm still alive': Cher Lloyd reveals she has been 'driven to hell and back' by internet bullies
Neither quote appears in the article, signed JJ 'Bearface' Anisiobi. Perhaps 'miracle' did appear in the interview Lloyd did with the Sun, from which Anisiobi cut and pasted his story.

Kate Silverton and the baby she calls 'my miracle': Presenter conceived naturally just weeks after halting IVF treatment
Story nicked from Hello! magazine. Silverton describes the pregnancy as "good fortune".

So now we know. A miracle is a baby, a near-death experience, or a spot cream.

'miracle' here seems to mean 'something unlikely happened'.

So by extension, the DM think a spot cure working is unlikely. Wonder if that's what they were going for?

Does the definition of a miracle suggest "divine intervention"? Perhaps they should ask their old pal George Carey what he thinks about the blasphemy of suggesting the Good Lord is responsible for clearing up acne? I may have to invent a religious nut job nom de plume...

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I'd rather shoot Paul Dacre than anyone else in the country- Colin Dexter. A direct quote from the Radio Times m'learned friends

I've recently been Soeur Modestie at the Shrine to Saint-Paul-le-Grosboucher.

Can I suggest "Mirabilis" for the topic title?

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Sick Left-wing Zealot.

Round of applause!!

"Miracle"? Don't get me f*****g started on that bloody word.

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"Now get those trousers off before someone dies!"

Wow.....God really loves her

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The upper hand is on the other foot now.

I hate how the likes of hospitals and other emergency services never get any credit for saving people's lives - it's always a bloody "miracle." Whenever there's a "miracle baby" (i.e. premature, ill or disabled) story in the papers, they always seem to be born in (or taken to) top children's hospitals in western countries. If those kids were born in some remote, rural place in the developing world with no access to medicine and high infant mortality, and still survived, then THAT would be a miracle.

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"Stop making up quotes and attributing them to me" - Voltaire

Quite. On the basis that these hacks don't bother their fat arses to even peer in to incubators let alone chase ambulances or, god forbid, venture to far-flung places where improbable survival really is news worthy, we'll just have to suck up the notion that divine intervention trumps medical science and hard graft every time.

Don't even get me started on "brave battles with cancer"...

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Brigate di Transizione

Quite.
Whereas when someone dies in hospital .............

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That subtle admixture of the absurd and the surreally plausible...

I've just remembered another one I hate - "miracle diets." WTF is a miracle diet? Eating 5 loaves and 2 fish? Turning water into wine and then drinking it? No, it's always something like, "The new miracle diet taking Hollywood by storm - simply cut down on alcohol, eat more brocolli and watch the pounds drop off! WOW!!" What's so miraculous about that? It's exactly the same thing as a goddamn DIET.

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"Stop making up quotes and attributing them to me" - Voltaire

'I willed Timothy to beat cancer'

No direct use of the word 'miracle' but the sentiment is there. I'm a big fan of Timothy Spall and I am more than happy for his wife to use the pages of the Mail to celebrate his recovery in whatever way she chooses. But many of us have willed cancer patients to get better, and they have not.

Ordinarily I'd be touched by this sort of story. But because it's in the Mail, and serves to fit the Mail's agenda — that medical science only goes so far; healing also requires prayer and homeopathy and 'miracles' — it's spoilt. I find myself struggling to empathise.

Dacre is turning me into a dalek.

"Miracle" as people make the Daily Mail the most read online newspaper site.

Shane Spall's just plugging her book, isn't she? They've got a boat to pay for.

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.