Mea Culpa: Multiplying breaches of the banned list

My campaign against the use of the word “multiple” to mean “several” is going badly. Bernard Theobald drew my attention to a travel article that said: “Multiple concerned consumers have been in touch with The Independent…” My main objection is that the word is ugly, but this was slightly confusing because it was almost as if the consumers’ concerns were multiple, which they might have been, but that wasn’t what we were trying to say.

We used it on multiple other occasions (yes, I have made that joke before). In our report of the housing secretary’s difficulties, we said: “Mr Jenrick has represented the government at multiple times during the coronavirus pandemic to urge the country to stay at home.” “At multiple times” is an inelegant phrase. “Has often represented the government” would have been fine.

And there was a striking example in a report on the impact of coronavirus in Ecuador. We said: “In many instances multiple people live in a very small space.” Having already described Guayaquil as a “densely populated city”, all of that could have been deleted.

Unbending ban: Another word on my banned list has been kept out of our pages more successfully. Patrick Wintour, my fellow journalist, pointed out recently that “flex” is increasingly used by smug bureaucrats. In a comment article arguing that people with gardens should be allowed to open them to their flat-dwelling neighbours, we said: “The rules need to flex.”

As Patrick said, “We are currently in the containment phase, but we need it to self-isolate now before it spreads.”

Different than the US: We reported a study that found the world’s oceans are “capturing twice as much carbon than previously thought” in the Daily Edition. Thanks to Richard Thomas for pointing out that in British English we usually say “twice as much as”. I assume this was an American “than” from US agency copy.

The end of the road: The subheadline on an interesting article analysing the effect of the coronavirus crisis on the media said: “Even with readers increasingly turning to news about the pandemic, the outbreak is still taking its toll on Fleet Street.”

The last newspaper on Fleet Street, The Sunday Post of Dundee, closed its office there in 2016, so it is probably time to send that metonym to the home for retired figures of speech (a metonym being something referred to by the name of something associated with it, such as a suit for a business person).

“Fleet Street” was the wrong phrase here in any case, because although the article said print newspapers were particularly hard hit, much of it was about the effect of reduced advertising on online media, most of which was never based there.