#297

Daily Express, December 14, 2017

It’s obvious that the person who handled this story hadn’t the faintest idea what it was about. The point is that Mr Kaci Sullivan has had two children, one while he was a woman and one while he was living as a man. This comes up in the third par but is not spelled out until the fifth.

This is how the Independent told it:

A transgender man has given birth to a healthy baby – five years after having his first child while living as a woman.

30-year-old Kaci Sullivan from Wisconsin, US, is believed to be the first person in the world to give birth living as both a woman and a man.

Sullivan already has one child, five-year-old Grayson, with his ex-husband. Grayson was born while Sullivan was living as a woman before transitioning.

It’s not perfect but it makes sense.

The Express heading is meaningless. The Independent is better:

Transgender man gives birth five years after having first child

but it still doesn’t quite grasp the point. I think it should be something like:

Mother has second child – this time as a man

 

#296

Daily Express, December 14, 2017

This is a common error. Poor Romeo had only one romance, and that turned out badly. The name you want here is Casanova, meaning a man who has multiple lovers. An alternative is Lothario, but that additionally implies deceitful behaviour.

 

#295

Mysterious decisions (1)

i newspaper, December 15, 2017

How can you select a story that revolves round a picture, then not use the picture? You can see it on this link:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-12/massive-scrub-python-blocks-queensland-road/9250042

It’s not the best picture ever, but you either use it with the story or you don’t use the story. Or, I suppose, don’t mention the picture. Anything but the way it is done here.

Mysterious decisions (2)

i newspaper, December 15, 2017

This story was immediately above the snake one. In exactly the same way, it’s useless without the picture, which was in the Times:

The Times, December 15, 2017

This makes it perfectly clear, and it’s the sort of thing that readers might talk about.

I simply cannot understand what goes on in the head of a person who can deliberately decide not to use pictures on obvious picture stories. There are enough stories around to fill holes.

 

#294

The Times, December 14, 2017

This is one of three words which sound the same, but it’s the wrong one. ‘Palate’ is the roof of the mouth or personal sense of taste; a ‘pallet’ is what goods are stacked on, and a ‘palette’ is what an artist uses, or metaphorically a range of flavours or sensations, which is the one wanted here.

 

#293

Wallis: The Queen That Never Was

Channel 5, November 29, 2017

Conjoined twins that shared a liver, intestine AND bladder have been successfully separated after a marathon surgery lasting 12 hours and involving 20 doctors

Mail Online, December 14, 2017

Suddenly I am seeing ‘that’ used everywhere instead of ‘who’. In this context, ‘that’ is a relative pronoun introducing a defining clause, such as ‘the tree that has been here for 400 years’. However when you are talking about people, the word you want is ‘who’. If you are talking about animals, it is ‘which’. In fact for all non-human references I think ‘which’ is more elegant than ‘that’, so: ‘the tree which has been here for 400 years’.

#292

I am not alone!

These two letters appeared in the i newspaper on December 13, 2017

I have been going on about this horrible expression for ages but I fear it is on the increase. This is my entry in the ‘Banned’ section of Style Matters:

fall pregnant: Absolutely not. This is a downmarket expression with sexist connotations of ‘fallen woman’. A woman may become pregnant, find she is expecting, or conceive.

Another entry from Style Matters:

pre: This means in advance, so pre-planned, pre-recorded, pre-ordered and pre-prepared are tautological.

Sadly, I’m sure it won’t be long before we see ‘fell pregnant’ and ‘pre-whatever’ again in the i newspaper and every other publication.

#291

The Times, December 13, 2017

(69 words) The line about p-p-p-picking up a p-p-p-penguin is from a 1970s advert, and it has been done to death in the 40-odd years since. I hoped I might have seen the last of it, but some fool has exhumed it. It wasn’t funny even at the time, and what relevance does it have now?

In such a short story, it is a waste of precious words to try a smart intro, even if it is smart, which this one isn’t. How about a comparison with today’s biggest penguin, the emperor, to put it in perspective? And if you are going to explain part of the Latin name, you have to explain all of it.

This is how I would do it:

Man-size penguin

The fossil remains of a giant penguin have been found in New Zealand. The bird, which lived 60million years ago, was 5ft 10in tall and weighed nearly 16st. By comparison, today’s largest penguin, the emperor, is 4ft and up to about 7st. Alan Tennyson, the scientist whose team made the discovery in Otago, has named it Kumimanu (‘monster bird’ in Maori) biceae (after his mother Bice). (68 words)

 

#290

Daily Express, December 11, 2017

(88 words) The construction used in the intro, known as a ‘dangling’ or ‘hanging’ participle, means that the first clause describes the first object or person referred to thereafter. So we have the new portrait standing in the Grand Corridor (note: caps on both words) at Windsor, not the Duke. My favourite example of getting this wrong was on BBC radio in September 2009: ‘Fifty years after his suicide, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has apologised to computer pioneer Alan Turing.’

The same error occurs in the second paragraph. Philip has not been painted, his portrait has. A better way of putting it would be:

In the picture by Australian Ralph Heimans, Philip is wearing . . .

This adds the fact that Heimans is Australian. I would think it is fairly obvious that he is an artist.

Given that the prince has retired because of his age, it would be good to put in that he is 96.

This would be my attempt:

STANDING in the Great Corridor at Windsor Castle, this is the Duke of Edinburgh in his latest portrait.

He is depicted wearing the blue sash of Denmark’s highest honour, the Order of the Elephant, to mark his close family association with the country.

Australian Ralph Heimans, who also painted the Diamond Jubilee portrait of the Queen, said: ‘I hope it does justice to his unique character.’

The portrait of the 96-year-old duke, who retired from public engagements in August, will go on display in the UK and Denmark next year. (90 words)