Mea Culpa: update on a continuing campaign

There was a lot going on over the past seven days. Or “ongoing”, as we often put it. After last week’s resumption of my campaign against “amid”, this week I shall take up another of this column’s long-running feuds, this time against a mostly pointless journalistic tic.

In each of the following five examples, the word “ongoing” could simply have been deleted.

“Mr Macron, who spoke to Mr Aliyev on Wednesday, said the fighting compromised ongoing efforts to achieve ‘fair and lasting peace’.”

“Levelling up minister Dehenna Davison has resigned from her role, citing an ongoing battle with chronic migraine.”

“The humidity of the ongoing French heatwave is causing all teams problems in handling and taking contact.”

“Then there is the Raac crisis in public buildings, the growing NHS waiting list, the ongoing small boat crossings and the thorny matter of a Supreme Court ruling on his Rwanda deportation plan.”

“Thousands of trains will be cancelled and millions of rail passengers hit by disruption in the next round of rail strikes in the ongoing, long and bitter dispute.”

In each of these, the ongoingness is evident from the context. In the rare cases where it is not, “continuing” would be a perfectly serviceable word.

There were a couple of cases in the past week, however, where the meaning was slightly different. We had two scoops: one about the likely cancellation of the next phase of the HS2 high-speed rail line, and another about the possible expansion of the Rugby World Cup to 24 teams in Australia in four years’ time. In both cases, we used the phrase, “The Independent understands that discussions are ongoing…”

Here I accept that “continuing” is the wrong word, because it would imply that the reader was aware that the discussions had already started – whereas the “news” is that they have started, although they have not yet reached a conclusion. So I would go for something like, “discussions are currently taking place”. It is longer, but at least it is not “ongoing”.

Crime mystery: Many readers wrote in to say that they had to read this headline more than once: “Woman charged with murder of missing pensioners feared dead.” It would have been easier to understand if we had simply cut the last two words, because, as the report made clear, it was the missing pensioners who were feared dead, not the woman who is accused of murdering them. It was not only confusing but tautological, because if she was charged with murder, it follows that someone must have died.

Take it away: We said, before it was corrected, that “Matt Hancock might get his just desserts in Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins”. We meant “deserts”, from the same root as “deserve”, with one “s”, rather than puddings. “Dessert” with two “ss” comes from the French desservir, “clear the table”, literally “take away what has been served” (to prepare for the last course). That I did not know.

Take off: In Pictures of the Day we showed Giorgio Armani with some models on “the runway”. As Richard Thomas wrote to say, “catwalk” is a more interesting, even poetic, word. I agree with him, that we should leave runways where they belong, at airports.