Mea Culpa: sympathy for Ukrainians displaced by rubble

In one of many articles about the war, we said there had been “an upsurge in sympathy for the plight of displaced Ukrainians”. Mick O’Hare wrote to ask if “surge” would not suffice. Or even just “an increase”? I think “surge” conveys a bit more oomph than a dull “increase”, but he is right that we didn’t need the “up”.

One word or two? I prefer “under way” as two words. That is our usual style, but this week we lapsed a few times. We said “pilot projects are already underway”; “Rishi Sunak has confirmed that a review is underway”; “Vega Room has become a vital part of the humanitarian effort underway in Lviv”; and “one of the most successful efforts to protect Ukraine’s contemporary art is underway in the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk”.

Thanks to Philip Nalpanis for bringing this up. It is a preference, as the rules on whether familiar combinations should be one word or two are arbitrary. I mentioned “any time” last week, which the Oxford dictionary has as two words while rather sulkily recording that it is often written as one: “also anytime”. Another (and even I would not suggest “an other”) is “any more”. On that I am losing the battle. The archive search tells me we used “anymore” 13 times last week and “any more” only 10 times.

In particular, we quoted Marina Galla, a refugee from Mariupol, as saying: “There is no city anymore.” Powerful though this is, I think it would be more so, and more definite, as: “There is no city any more.”

Leave aside my personal preference, though: the one-word forms all seem faintly American. If there is a choice, we should always favour British English, not because it is “better” but because readers often unconsciously think it is more authoritative.

Falling masonry markets: Elsewhere in our coverage of the war, we quoted an aide to Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, as saying that western sanctions were more severe than the Kremlin expected: “It was even a surprise to me. The impact – flights halted, the rubble plunging, foreign companies leaving – I don’t think this response was fully anticipated.” Thanks to Roger Thetford for spotting this fine variant spelling of the Russian currency. It is sometimes spelt ruble, and there may be a lot of “plunging rubble” in Ukraine, but our style is rouble.

Legal jargon: We weakened this headline by resorting to cliche: “Ukrainian families being housed in ‘unfit for purpose’ UK asylum hotels.” The phrase “fit for purpose”, from the Sale of Goods Act, has become so worn from overuse that it now has a deadening effect. We were quoting Louise Calvey, of Refugee Action, which is why the phrase was in quotation marks, but even so, the headline would have been sharper, and still accurate, if it had simply said: “Ukrainian families being housed in ‘unfit’ UK asylum hotels.”