The Times, December 19, 2017
To prise means to wrench something from someone’s grasp with difficulty. This seems an odd word to describe a one-sided three-nil slaughter.
‘Mike Atherton’s Ashes verdict as Australia steamroller England’ might be nearer the mark.
The Times, December 20, 2017
‘Mistake’ and ‘accident’ are not synonyms. A mistake implies lack of judgment or getting it wrong. An accident is something that happens by chance or without apparent cause. It was right to avoid the repetition of ‘accident’ in the heading and the intro, but the alternative word in the heading should have been ‘chance’.
The Times, December 16, 2017
This is a classic tautology, which means saying the same thing in two ways or adding an unnecessary qualifier, such as ‘rise up’ and ‘personally I think’. A ‘gift’ is by definition something ‘given’. The clue is in the similarity of the words. Not content with having this basic error in the heading, the Times repeated it in the intro and display quote.
mirror.co.uk, December 16, 2017
In this context, ‘but’ is a conjunction (a joining word) which introduces a phrase or clause contrasting with what has gone before. An example would be ‘most of the children were boys, but a few were girls’. I am increasingly seeing ‘but’ used in this meaningless way. You don’t need any conjunction. ‘The top 50 places for quality of life in the UK revealed – does your area feature?’ is fine.
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:
but it still doesn’t quite grasp the point. I think it should be something like:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Channel 5, November 29, 2017
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’.
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.