Sunday Times, October 29, 2017
I find this incredible. How can you possibly send this through without the relevant ages? I timed how long it took me to find out on the internet: 20 seconds. (If you would like to know, Dyche and Guardiola are 46, while Pochettino is 45.) If the writer has not got the wit to find room in 1,000 words for the ages, it is the sub’s job to rescue him. What have these people got between the ears?
The Times, October 28, 2017
Harry Kane was injured last weekend and will not be playing. Presumably six days’ notice was not enough for the Times to pull the picture and the reference. In any case, it is asking for trouble to preview sports events in this way, with the risks of injury and bad weather. There is no rule that there has to be a picture preview. Why not just list the events?
The Times, October 26, 2017
Did an eight-year-old write this? There is always a better word than the childish ‘get’. In this case, ‘Too small to be removed by filters or sewage treatment plants, the fibres are washed into the sea . . .’
The Times, October 26, 2017
Aaargh. I must have seen this heading scores of times. This is my entry in the Cliches section of Style Matters:
up, up and away on any story about balloons, helicopters or assorted flying objects. This was the title of a truly frightful 60s pop song, and it hasn’t got any better for being dragged out at regular intervals for nearly 50 years. I am begging you.
To prove the point, the Daily Express came up with the same lazy, banal line:
Daily Express, October 26, 2017
PS: I’ve just noticed ‘born aloft’ in the second line. ‘Born’ means that his mother gave birth to him in the air. The word for ‘carried’ is ‘borne’.
The Times, October 26, 2017
This couple are called Hill, so they are the Hills. They live in the Hills’ house. I think the problem with this may have arisen because the name ‘Hills’ is also common. If you switch to a name which is never plural, such as Ashworth, you can see that you would not say the Ashworths’s home, but the Ashworths’ home. (If the couple were called Hills, they would be the Hillses, and they would live in the Hillses’ house. See the entry on plural names in the general topics section of Names in Style Matters.)
The Daily Express also had problems with the name:
Daily Express, October 26, 2017
There is no earthly reason why there should be an apostrophe here.
The Times, October 26, 2017
As opposed to a small $24bn fortune, I suppose. If you needed to fill out the line, just spell out ‘billion’.
i newspaper, October 25, 2017
Obvious question (1): How does Matthew’s family afford all this? Answer: Loganair gives him free flights.
i newspaper, October 25, 2017
Obvious question (2): How long is the border? Answer: 1,900 miles.
When I was a young sub, finding the answer to a question that was a glaring hole in a story involved going to the library, asking for a reference book or folder of cuttings then searching through same. Now it is literally a matter of seconds to find what you need on the internet. There is no excuse for sending through lazy stories like these.
. . . some time later . . .
The Times, October 25, 2017
The word ‘chthonic’ may be in common use in the Times offices, but even so the writer should know that it will be unfamiliar to 99.9 per cent of readers, and therefore must be explained. However that would be a problem here, because as so often when someone tries to look clever by using an obscure word, he or she gets it wrong and looks a perfect idiot. The technical meaning of ‘chthonic’ is ‘subterranean’ but it is associated with underworld spirits and deities. Not the association that would be wanted in a Holocaust memorial, I imagine.
PS In the intro, ‘create’ means ‘to make a new one’ so ‘new’ is redundant. It would be a lot cleverer to get a simple thing like that right.
The Times, October 25, 2017
Writing headlines requires an ear for scansion. ‘Masters of the universe’, as well as being a well-known expression, has a rhythm which ‘masters of universe’ does not. The annoying thing about this heading is how little it would take to make it good – simply move ‘the’ so that it reads:
How City’s masters of the universe
failed and undermined industry
Daily Telegraph, October 25, 2017
‘Upmost’ is a synonym of ‘uppermost’, meaning ‘the top’ in physical terms, eg ‘the upmost branches of the tree’. The word wanted here is ‘utmost’, meaning ‘greatest’ or ‘most extreme’, which is applied to sentiments such as respect.
Daily Telegraph, October 25, 2017
‘Discrete’ means separate or distinct when something is divided into parts, eg ‘the music was in three discrete sections’. Thus ‘indiscrete’ means ‘not in distinct parts’, which is not a word you often need, though presumably it applies to Kim Cattrall. The word wanted here is ‘indiscreet’, meaning she had talked about things she maybe should have kept quiet. There are many pairs of words which look and sound similar but mean quite different things, and unless you are certain you have the right one, look it up or look silly.