Errors & Omissions

Errors & Omissions: You really ought to think carefully before using the word 'real'

Saturday, 30 October 2010

Whenever you find yourself writing the word "real", pause for a moment: you should probably cut it out.

Errors & Omissions: Double whammy of the wrong conjunction and a dreadful cliché

Saturday, 23 October 2010

Here is the first paragraph of a news story published on Monday: "He shot to fame by taking unusual objects – notably dead animals such as horses and cows – encasing them in glass and displaying them in galleries as art. But when Damien Hirst discovered that his own diary, containing intimate declarations of love, was going to appear as an exhibit in an east London art show, he had no hesitation in contacting the police."

Errors & Omissions: Spare me a thought when you dither at the beginning of a story

Saturday, 16 October 2010

The drop intro has its place in the reporter's armoury, though it can easily look like the artifice it is.

Errors & Omissions: Campaign against overworked pronouns gets off on the right track

Saturday, 9 October 2010

Last week this column launched a campaign against the habit of making the same pronoun stand for two or more different people in the course of a single sentence. The campaign has got off to an excellent start.

Errors & Omissions: This battle against the misuse of pronouns is getting personal

Saturday, 2 October 2010

By Guy Keleny

Errors & Omissions: We should follow the rules of grammar, even if they sound a bit 'wrong'

Saturday, 25 September 2010

"Hope for peace talks remain despite tensions in West Bank."

Errors & Omissions: This is the headline. Believe it or not, you tend to read this bit first

Saturday, 18 September 2010

Errors & Omissions: Blindingly obvious questions are not the best way to attract the reader

Saturday, 11 September 2010

First you read the headline. Then you read the picture caption, if any. Finally you turn to the text of the story. So it is quite important that the headline and caption, and any other bits and pieces of "furniture" in large type, should draw you in to read the story.

Errors & Omissions: The battle against 'iconic' continues, as does the defence of Gateshead

Saturday, 4 September 2010

Evidently, this column needs to reopen its campaign against the empty vogue-word "iconic". Here is the opening sentence of an article about large-scale works of public art, published on Wednesday: "It started with The Angel of the North, Antony Gormley's iconic steel sculpture which looms over the A1 and put Gateshead on the map for the right reason."

Errors & Omissions: Another distinctively British usage gets lost on its way across the Atlantic

Saturday, 28 August 2010

This column does not go on about "Americanisms". Terms such as "loft apartment" do not drive us to paroxysms of nationalistic bigotry.