Mea culpa: seafood soup
John Rentoul’s round-up of errors in last week’s Independent
It is so easy to write all the right words but not necessarily in the right order. As we know what we mean to say, the words make perfect sense to us, but we have to be careful that when they arrive in the reader’s brain they mean the same.
In a report last weekend of crabageddon, the mysterious death of crustaceans on the northeast coast of England, we said: “Eco activists, scientists, fishermen and divers, concerned about the
disaster that threatened the creatures as well as their livelihoods, suspected the blame lay with toxins linked to dredging...”
When I read it I thought it was the livelihoods of the creatures that were threatened. It wasn’t hard to work out what we meant, but the image of crabs worried about the survival of their small businesses was an unnecessary distraction. A simple reversal was all that was needed: “threatened their livelihoods as well as the creatures, ...”
Fog of war: We similarly risked diverting the reader in a report about the war in Ukraine: “White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the move is the result of Wagner’s ongoing operations in Ukraine, which he described as ‘committing atrocities and human rights abuses’.”
That could have made it seem as though Kirby was describing Ukraine as committing atrocities, when he was actually referring to the other side in the conflict. The reader, searching for the noun that the verb “committing” should be attached to, has to choose between “Ukraine” and “operations”, and operations cannot commit atrocities.
That sentence, incidentally, also suffered from the journalese “move” and a redundant “ongoing”. The first referred to the US government’s designation of the Wagner Group as a “transnational criminal organisation”, which could have been referred to as “the decision”, and the second is never needed. If we do need the concept, which we didn’t in this case because everyone knows that there is a war on, we could use “continuing” instead.
Invisible join: In our advice on how to observe a comet, we said: “It is currently necessary to use binoculars or a telescope to see the celestial spectacle, however as the perigee approaches on 1 February it should be possible to watch the comet with the naked eye.” Thanks to Paul Edwards for pointing out that this should have been two sentences. Short sentences are good. If we really wanted a single sentence, it could have been joined with an “although” or a “but”. You don’t need to know formal grammar – “however” is not a conjunction – to know that.
More than one: In “Home news in brief” on Thursday, we had a headline that read “Multiple Met officers to appear in court.” Philip Nalpanis said that he knows I object to the word “multiple” when “several” will do, but, as he rightly said, on this occasion there was no need for either word. The plural “officers” was enough to indicate that there were more than one of them.
Sports news: In a rugby report, we said: “England’s preparations for the Six Nations have suffered another hammer blow after Elliot Daly was ruled out of the entire tournament because of a hamstring injury.” That should have been “when” rather than “after”, as Daly’s injury was the hammer blow.
And in tennis news last weekend we had a double headline: “Raducanu starts Australian Open with convincing win ... While British hope Draper loses to Nadal in four sets.” That “hope” was ambiguous, as Henry Peacock pointed out. Perhaps we could have called him the “British prospect”?
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