Month: July 2017

The Times, July 22, 2017

It goes without saying that undercover police officers will not be wearing uniforms or riding bicycles marked ‘Police’. You have to think about every word.

A man who accidentally strangled a 16-year-old girl to death while pursuing a “sexual thrill” has been jailed for 12 years for her manslaughter.

BBC News Online, July 20, 2017

To strangle means to cause death by compressing the throat, so ‘strangle’ is  sufficient. Alternatively you can say ‘choked to death’, or ‘choked’ if death does not result.

The Times, July 21, 2017

There is something important missing here – the sentence (which was 12 years). It’s not optional, and should go where the asterisk is.

i newspaper, July 20, 2017

I thought this heading on Page 2 was rather good. I turned to Page 24 and found

The idea of a taster on Page 2 is to lead you to a fuller version further into the paper, not one that is less than a third longer. And you can’t use the same heading twice.

Daily Express, July 19, 2017

This is a sloppy sentence. ‘Like’ means ‘similar to’, so this suggests that the seats in question are not the ones mentioned. The correct expression is ‘such as’. ‘Won off’ is something a child would say. It should be ‘won from’.

i newspaper, July 20, 2017

The word ‘manuscript’ means ‘handwritten’ (from medieval Latin manu ‘by hand’ and scriptus ‘written’), so ‘handwritten’ should be deleted.

The Times, July 17, 2017

I’ve been saying for decades that this must be the case, so it is good to see a professional spelling it out. It is fair enough to say that a pilot steered clear of a building, but avoid using the word ‘hero’ in that connection.

Clitheroe Advertiser, July 17, 2017

‘Impromptu’ means ‘on the spur of the moment’ so it cannot by definition be planned. Still, if a mistake is worth making once, it’s worth making three times.

PS: I would avoid breaking Clitheroe as in the penultimate line.

Take a Break magazine, July 20, 2017

The past tense of ‘lay’ is ‘laid’. Both words need a lot of care. See ‘lay’ in the Grammar section of Style Matters.

i newspaper, July 15, 2017

Surely everyone in the country knows Diane Abbott’s name. It is beyond me how someone who calls him or herself a journalist can get this wrong.