Errors & Omissions
Errors & Omissions: The occasional verb wouldn't go amiss in a headline
The headline gremlins have been busy. On Tuesday this appeared on a news page: "Blair warned in 2000 Iraq war was illegal." Does that mean that Blair warned somebody that the war was illegal, or that he was warned?
Inside Errors & Omissions
Errors & Omissions: Labour adds to the collection of notoriously bad slogans
Saturday, 27 February 2010
The Labour Party has adopted what may be the worst slogan since the notorious "You're never alone with a Strand", the 1959 copy line that killed the brand of cigarettes it was supposed to promote.
Errors & Omissions: Those rampaging nouns have been on the loose again
Saturday, 20 February 2010
The 1960 science-fiction novel A Canticle for Leibowitz concerns a community of Latin-speaking monks surviving in an America devastated by nuclear war.
Errors & Omissions: Who needs enemies when you can have 'liberators'?
Saturday, 13 February 2010
My Hungarian grandfather, in the years before he fled to this country, had lived under the Nazis and then under the post-war Communists. All he ever said about it was that the Communists were bad, but the Nazis were worse.
Errors & Omissions: Rely too heavily on the internet and risk baffling the reader
Saturday, 6 February 2010
We proceed on the assumption that the reader has access to the internet. No longer do "newspapers of record" devote daily pages of print to, for instance, debates in Parliament.
Errors & Omissions: Use equine metaphors correctly or risk falling out of the saddle
Saturday, 30 January 2010
Andy McSmith's entertaining feature on Saturday about the intersecting Oxford careers of politicos that are now famous included a variant spelling that is now so common that it ought perhaps to be legitimised by the College of Cardinal Pedants.
Errors & Ommisions: When it comes to meaningless phrases, journalists can't say no
Saturday, 23 January 2010
This is from a news story published on Monday: "Teachers' leaders are today calling for a new government grant to help white working-class children lift themselves from the bottom of the heap when it comes to exam performance."
Errors & Omissions: Readers lost in the muddle of a never-ending sentence
Saturday, 16 January 2010
The first sentence of a news story is crucial. It sets the scene and tries to grab the reader's attention. So there is a temptation to cram too much into it.
Errors & Omissions: In some cases, newspapers should be the last with the news
Saturday, 9 January 2010
"The next person who comes in here and tells me that language is a living thing gets the sack." That was the snarling reaction of the great Frank Peters, night editor of The Northern Echo in the 1970s, to air-headed reporters who tried to argue with his insistence on orthodox grammar and vocabulary.
Errors & Omissions: Redundant phrases that should not be used any time soon
Saturday, 2 January 2010
Some people might dismiss this as a question of taste, which it undoubtedly is, but it is also a question of redundancy. There is never a need for the phrase "any time soon".
Errors & Omissions: Rhythmic writing and the grammatical flourish
Saturday, 26 December 2009
On Boxing Day morning, you don't want this column's usual nit-picking about things that went wrong in the past week's issues of the paper. So this week we change into festive attire and offer instead a celebration of some particular felicities.
|
|
Most popular
Read
Emailed
Commented
1Heads must roll at the BBC, says Geldof after Ethiopia aid report
2Robert Fisk: Living proof of the Armenian genocide
3Lumley named in row over Gurkha charity
4Mark Steel: My advice to Obama ? throw away the kid gloves
5Have Ashcroft's millions fatally wounded Tories?
6Ex-MI5 head: US hid torture tactics from UK
7Rupert Cornwell: Sound of a window of opportunity being shut
8PM to urge 'resolve' against economic storm
9Eating with the enemy: why Russia loves Georgian food
10'Jihad Jane' held in plot to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks
|
|
Register for free to find your perfect partner with Independent Singles