Mea Culpa: who tried to blow up those pipelines?

We seemed determined to assign responsibility for explosions damaging Baltic Sea gas pipelines to the wrong countries in a report last week. We said the attack was “being investigated as an act of sabotage by Germany, Sweden and Denmark”. We meant it was being investigated by those countries, as a suspected act of sabotage by another country.

Later in the report, we referred to “a letter sent to the UN three days after the attack by Danish and Swedish investigators”; we changed it to say the letter was “sent to the UN by Danish and Swedish investigators three days after the attack”.

The rest of the article made clear that the Russian government was the prime suspect, but we should not have made the reader work so hard.

Tons of trouble: We got our tons and tonnes confused in a news story in which we said: “Hong Kong customs have seized 1.8 metric tons (2 tonnes) of liquid methamphetamine in the city’s biggest-ever meth bust.” Thanks to Iain Brodie for pointing out our error. A metric ton, 1,000 kg, is usually called a tonne. A US ton, which is what I assume is used here, is smaller, 907kg. So I assume it should be 1.8 tonnes, equivalent to 2 tons, but this kind of unnecessary conversion is maddening. It is all approximate and nobody cares. Just say 2 tonnes and be done with it.

Tight or loose? In an article about the problems with the asylum system, we said that its failure “means asylum seekers are left anguishing in hotels, or other emergency accommodation”. This may have been a simple typing error, but it produced a rather poetic effect. Oddly enough, anguish comes from Latin angustia, tightness or distress, while languish comes from Latin languere, related to laxus, looseness, which meant “becoming feeble”.

Presumption: We called Keir Starmer an “heir presumptive” in an opinion article about the Labour leader’s interview with Mumsnet. I suspect that the reference to the hereditary principle was more pointed than intended, because the usual phrase is “heir apparent”, an heir whose claim to an inheritance cannot be supplanted by the birth of a closer relation. Were we suggesting that Starmer is merely the current alternative prime minister, who may be replaced before the transfer of power by someone better placed?

Americanism watch: We summarised another newspaper’s story about Lord Lucan, who disappeared in 1974, saying that three Cluedo cards were found “in the trunk of the car” he abandoned. As more than one reader pointed out, in British English a car has a “boot”. That was what it was called in the original story, so I don’t know why we changed it.

Outgoing: We had several “upcomings” last week. If we have to use the word, I prefer “forthcoming”, but this is fortunately not a debate in which we need to engage, because we almost always don’t need a word at all. In an editorial, we wrote that “Mr Bolsonaro’s fall comes just before the upcoming Cop27 climate summit”. Delete. We obviously didn’t mean a past Cop summit, which would have a different number. We had a headline that said: “Nevada is the key state in the upcoming midterm elections.” Delete. No reader is going to think we were talking about the last midterm elections in 2018, or the next ones in 2026. And we said: “The Duke of Sussex truly could not have picked a better title for his upcoming memoir.” I don’t follow the doings of the royal family closely, but even I know that he hasn’t written a memoir before. Up it comes and out it goes.