Mea culpa: Joe Biden, a man with a lot on his plate
John Rentoul’s regular round-up of our errors and omissions
I mentioned the problem with the formula “cannot be understated” last week. It trips us up so often that we should train ourselves not to use it, not least because it is a cumbersome way of expressing a simple point. Even when it is used correctly, as in a headline last week, “There’s no point in underestimating Biden’s challenges,” I think it gets in the way of understanding. All that headline says is that Joe Biden faces some big challenges, which is not exactly a surprising insight about the president of the richest and most powerful country on Earth.
As Richard Thomas wrote to point out, in addition to under- and over-estimate, there are other pairs that are often confused. In an editorial last week about David Cameron’s attempt to defend his lobbying, we
said: “Mr Johnson must no doubt be extracting much satisfaction from the exquisite squirming of his successor.” That should have been “predecessor”. Ancestor and descendant is another pair that is sometimes mixed up. Constant vigilance is required.
Cause and effect: That editorial about Mr Cameron also said: “The reason why no previous prime minister has been hauled before a parliamentary committee in this way is because none has behaved in this way.” First, “the reason why” is perfectly natural spoken English, but it is not necessary: just “the reason” is more elegant in formal writing. And “the reason … is because” is taking colloquial superfluity too far. “The reason … is that” is all we needed.
Give it 110 per cent: One of my rules is that we should avoid percentages of more than 100. So I agree with Alan Pack, who objected to our report that “online scams soared by 1,500 per cent”. As he said, adding two noughts to a number makes it seem more impressive but actually makes it harder for the reader to understand. “A 16-fold increase in the number of online scams” would have been clearer.
Campaign update: J O Jones has written to say: “I’m afraid your campaign against the use of words such as amid and uptick is not going very well.” He drew my attention to a report on immigrants reaching Italy that included both words in one sentence: “This comes amid an uptick in the number of people attempting to get to Europe to seek a new life.” As he pointed out, “this comes during an increase” would have meant the same.
Unfortunately, the problem was even worse, because the words were at the start of the second paragraph of the news story, the first paragraph of which enumerated arrivals at Lampedusa over the previous two days. In other words, “this” did not come “during an increase” – it was part of the increase.
Former patriots: In an editorial about changes in voting rules that appear designed to benefit the Conservative Party, we said that the 2019 Tory manifesto included “a commitment to broaden the franchise among ex-pats”. Thank you to John Schluter for giving me the chance to wheel out my old joke. We meant expats, short for expatriates, who are people who live outside (ex-) their country (patria), not ex-pats, who are people who used to be patriotic but aren’t any more.