#504

The Times, October 9, 2019

In a packed field, this emerges as the front-runner for the title of worst intro of the year. I am sure the sub was not to blame – this writer is in second, third and fourth places too. But someone has to say to him that this would disgrace an eight-year-old.  Writers who think they can write are a menace, and if they are treated as untouchable they get worse.

#503

The Times, October 7, 2019

By now I am used to newspapers using the wrong words, but this is fairly unusual: a word that doesn’t exist. The Knicks are a basketball team properly called the New York Knickerbockers, and ‘knicks’ is a short form for a lady’s underwear. If you try a spellcheck for ‘knick’ it will come up with nothing, which is what this sub should have done when he or she meant ‘nick’.

#502

i newspaper special, September 25, 2019

The past tense of ‘to spring’ is ‘sprang’. ‘Sprung’ is the past participle, used with versions of ‘have’: ‘the flower has/had/will have sprung.’ These things are not regular and I drew up a handy chart on here a while ago. I will try to dig it out. Meanwhile Yasmin Alibhai-Brown writes:

From Style Matters:

flaunt/flout: To flaunt is to display ostentatiously; to flout is treat with contempt (usually in the sense of breaking rules). And:

Nice heading, but ruined by the usual ignorance about the natural world: ‘botanic’ refers to plants. The equivalent for animals would, I suppose, be ‘zoological’. I dare say the person who wrote the caption thinks this is pedantic. It isn’t.

#501

The Times, September 21, 2019

This is a common error but I would not expect to see it the Times. The word should be ‘defuse’, as in defusing a bomb. ‘To diffuse’ means to spread over a large area, as in ‘television is a way of diffusing knowledge’, but is more often seen as an adjective meaning not concentrated, for example ‘diffuse sunlight’.

#499

The Times, September 13, 2019

One thing you learn with experience at subbing is not to try to dress up a perfectly good story. Here is a good example.  Do we think the readers are children who cannot grasp a narrative unless it is reduced to an everyday situation? You could lop off this intro and make the story ten times better.  Everything you need for a good dramatic tale is in the second par.

This is a better way to do it. It’s not perfect but it doesn’t make the reader lose the will to live halfway through the first par:

i newspaper, September 13, 2019

 

 

#497

The Times, September 11, 2019

One of the clearest indicators of ignorance is getting the tenses of ‘lay’ and ‘lie’ mixed up. I am staggered that someone calling him or herself a Times journalist, and presumably accepting pay, does not know this most basic English. (By the way, it would have interesting to note that the plant will die after flowering, but I suppose that is too nerdy. The last thing a smart young person wants to admit is to having some general or scientific knowledge.)

This is my Style Matters entry, not that it will filter through to the moron who put ‘laying’ instead of ‘lying’.

 

  • 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’.

 

#496

Either I am in the throes of dementia (entirely possible) or the Times has given up any attempt at  intelligible captions, instead putting a string of random words to fill the space.

Three examples from today (September 4, 2019):

The ‘toy’ in the washing machine is not the one in the inset pic, and why are there two dogs in that pic?

Eh? What does ‘writing event’ mean?

 

More eye-catching than what?

I despair. A lifetime spent trying to make things clear for the reader was obviously a waste of time. Just stick any words that occur to you in the hole.

 

#495

Ann Treneman, The Times, August 30, 2019

Most dictionaries define a ‘heifer’ as a cow over one year old which has not had a calf. One or two extend the definition to a cow which has had one calf. I doubt if the dog-walker would have known the exact maternity history of the animal involved, but ‘cow’ would obviously cover every eventuality. I imagine the sub was one of the familiar type these days who feel it is somehow not cool to have knowledge about the natural world.