#607

Daily Express, January 2, 2025

Tip: if you mis-spell a word, do not put the correct version a few lines later. Stick to your guns and claim that ‘installment’ is right.  I cannot understand how someone who calls him/herself (I resist ‘their’ as lazy) a ‘sub-editor’ cannot see that there are two spellings of the same word in two sentences. This is pathetic.

#604

The Fifth Republic was created to concentrate power in the hands of Charles de Gaulle at a time of national crisis. And ever since De Gaulle, presidents have tried – and generally failed – to emulate his stature.

BBC News Online, December 5, 2024

This is a perfect example of the ‘couldn’t give a damn’ school of subbing – two versions of the same name in one line. Anyone who can turn in sloppy work like this is plainly in the wrong job. Incidentally it is ‘de Gaulle’.

#603

Times, November 25, 2024

One of the most commonly misused words is ‘but’. It is not an alternative to ‘and’, as many seem to think. It means that what follows is contrary to expectations. There is nothing surprising or contrary to expectations about the third in a sequence of bad weather pictures. I would have left it at a semi-colon, which is quite sufficient.

A bonus error: ‘bail’ is a judicial term meaning a prisoner is granted his or  her freedom in return for a guarantee that a sum of money will be forfeit if he or she fails to turn up at an appointed date. The word wanted here is ‘bale’.

#602

i newspaper, November 23, 2024

Using a spellchecker won’t pick up everything, eg it would accept ‘their’ when it should be ‘there’ or vice versa, but it would save you from an idiotic mistake like mis-spelling ‘buoyant’. Either they don’t have any form of revising at the i newspaper or there are at least two people who think that ‘bouyant’ is near enough.

 

#601

Times, November 20, 2024

‘Coruscating’ means exactly the opposite of what the Times writer/sub intends. It means ‘sparkling’ or ‘flashing’ as in ‘a coruscating diamond tiara’. The word wanted here was probably ‘excoriating’, which means ‘scathing’ or ‘severely critical’. While checking this I was horrified to find that Oxford Languages, the self-proclaimed ‘world’s leading dictionary publisher’, accepts ‘scathing’ as a secondary definition after the correct one.  This is simply legitimising an incorrect usage. I give up.

#600

Father messaged wife on WhatsApp to say he had just finished his first Snowdonia peak climb before falling to his death and laying undiscovered for months, inquest hears

Mail Online, November 13, 2024

I’m afraid when I hear people misusing tenses of the verb ‘to lie’ I file them under the heading Stupid. Really, no sub-editor should get this wrong.

Here is my explanation from Style Matters:

 

  • lay: This is the past tense of the verb ‘to lie’ as in ‘I lay on the ground yesterday’ and is also the transitive verb (transitive means it must take an object; it cannot stand alone) ‘to lay’ as in ‘the hen lays eggs’ or ‘I am going to lay the table’. The past tense of ‘to lay’ is ‘laid’. Of course, as everyone knows, ‘lay’ and ‘laid’ are also colloquial sexual expressions and great care must be taken to avoid an inadvertent double meaning. However the chief offence is using ‘lay’ instead of ‘lie’, as in ‘I’m going to lay down’, ‘She is laying on the bed’ or ‘The lion lays in wait for its prey’, or using ‘laid’ instead of ‘lay’, as in ‘He laid on his bed’. To complete the confusion there is the verb ‘to lie’ or tell an untruth. This one is comparatively simple, however.

    A brief tour round the tenses:

    to lie (as in recline)

    present: I lie on the bed, he lies on the bed/I am lying on the bed

    past: I lay on the bed, he lay on the ground

    participle (with a form of have) I/he/we have/has/had lain on the bed

    Note that the word ‘laid’ does not exist in this verb.

    to lay (as in to put or place, followed by an object)

    present: I lay the table, the hen lays eggs/I am laying the table

    past: I laid the table, the hen laid eggs

    participle: I/she have/has/had laid the table

    Note: this is the only polite use for the word ‘laid’.

    to lie (as in to tell an untruth)

    present: I lie, he lies/he is lying

    past: I/he lied

    participle: I/he have/has/had lied

    You will see that there are numerous opportunities for double meanings even if you are being perfectly accurate. If you see such a pitfall looming, at all costs find another form of words. If you are about to use the word ‘lay’ at all, and you are not 100 per cent sure that it is correct, check. There are few errors that betray ignorance as much as this one. Incidentally, British writers use ‘lie of the land’ while Americans say ‘lay of the land’.

 

#599

Mail Online, November 11, 2024

This is a common error. The word for ‘coming under intense criticism’ is ‘flak’,  which evolved during the Second World War as a contraction of the German word Flugabwehrkanone meaning ‘aircraft defence cannon’ or anti-aircraft fire. I note that there are some internet sites which say that ‘flack’ is the right spelling, but this is nonsense.  The only correct use of ‘flack’, as far as I am concerned, is an Americanism meaning a press or PR agent.  Or poor old Caroline Flack.