Mea Culpa: Out for the count

In a somewhat confusing article about a veteran heavyweight champion, we included a peculiar imperative in our headline, which read: “Mike Tyson should never step in a boxing ring again – but don’t hold your breath.” Common wisdom suggests it is not easy to prove a negative, and that applies in this instance: were we to attempt to hold our collective breath until the event in question had “never” taken place, we would be doing so for an indefinite period of time. Which, aside from being obviously fatal, might get a little bit dull.

We had another unfortunate headline on a news item about a security alert in London. “Controlled explosion at Euston Station after suspect package probed,” it said, giving the impression that the object in question had been penetrated with some sort of instrument. Not an advisable course of action in the circumstances; even if its contents were relatively inert – say, a troupe of performing bees, or a cheese and asparagus flan – you really wouldn’t want to go poking at it with a stick. “Investigated” might have been a better choice of word – or, if space was an issue, just “found”.

If in doubt: “Reform UK politician was detained as a teenager for kicking girlfriend at time,” we announced above a news report, prompting one of our readers to wonder what was the purpose of the final two words. In instances like this, the way to find out is generally to remove the part in question, and – much as with the dubious package experiment – see what happens.

In this case, the answer was nothing. It still made sense, because there was no ambiguity involved. It would be extremely unlikely for the chap to have kicked a girlfriend he didn’t have at the time, unless it were a former one, and if that were the case, we could have just added an “ex”. Even if the person he kicked were still his girlfriend now, it wouldn’t matter. So there was no need to say “at (the) time”, and it is always best to avoid extraneous waffle, as Orwell said rather more politely.

(As an aside, some editing software I try to ignore has just suggested I correct that to “waffles”; being partial to these geometric delicacies, I’m afraid I couldn’t possibly agree with such a sentiment, whoever said it.)

Divide and conquer: We got our grammar wrong when we wrote about some proposed legislation last week, saying: “Scores of experts lineup against assisted dying bill.” “Lineup” is a noun, and is often used to refer to the members of a band, or a team, or participants in a contest. It can also be a phrasal (either transitive or intransitive) verb, which is written as two words: “line up”.

It’s not alone: it has a number of cousins that work in a similar manner, and some are even more confusing. “Breakup”, for example, alongside its noun and verb forms, has a somewhat less lucrative side-hustle as an adjective, mostly in the context of breakup songs. The important thing to remember is that the two elements of the verb form are never joined together – not even with a hyphen – and while we may have been writing about a lineup of experts, they were lining up to protest about the bill. Thankfully, breaking up (the word) was not so very hard to do.

Checks and balances: Reader John Schluter wrote to alert us to a mistake in a comment piece about Donald Trump’s picks for his cabinet, in which we noted the amount of attention devoted to the most controversial of them. “But keep an eye on what’s happening under the surface,” we wrote. “Whether it’s attacks on the media or the appointment of hundreds of conservative-leaning judges, we are entering unchartered waters.”

That should have said “uncharted”, which means an area that has not been recorded on a map; the word “chartered” relates to another sort of document. It’s a small distinction, but an important one, and we should do our best to make our writing as accurate as possible – especially at a time like this.

Leagual tender: In an article about the status of the Premier League, we said: “In 2018-19, arguably the high watermark of the 90-point teams, Liverpool and City played 76 league games between them ...”. The correct term is “high-water mark”, in reference to the mark that is made on a wall, or a post, or some other object, to record the highest point reached by a body of water. It is not, as our rendering might suggest, anything to do with watermarks, which are images imprinted within paper currency or fancy notepaper to denote authenticity.

On that, er, note, I had better go and deal with some unattended articles. As ever, if you see something that doesn’t look right, do let us know.