Mea Culpa: Re diffusion

It is a given in any media organisation that, by and large, the people employed there will know a fair bit about language and communication. On matters of science, however, I would wager that almost none of us is especially fluent. And so it was brought to our attention last week that we had, it seems, forgotten our first-year biology while editing an article written by one of our esteemed columnists, who had used a scientific term as a figure of speech.

Describing the influence of Rupert Murdoch, they wrote: “And the boss’s views – on climate, on Brexit, on elections, on Iraq, on capitalism, on the BBC – seeped, as if by osmosis, into columns and editorials.” I was 12 a long time ago; I recall an experiment involving an egg, but that is all I recall. And thus the analogy was able to pass through the semi-permeable membrane known as the subbing desk.

According to erudite reader John Harrison – whose assertion is supported by the entirety of the scientific canon, if only I had checked – osmosis occurs when some diluting element passes from a less concentrated solution to a more concentrated one, which means, if you think about it, that our analogy was the wrong way round. Given the strength of opinion alluded to on the Murdoch side of the equation, surely osmosis would have seen him influenced by the more neutral elements of the media?

I’m glad that our readers notice things like this; though we can’t always put it right, it means we will know next time. Whether we understand it or not is a different matter, but still.

Plane speaking: In a wonderful article about RAF Typhoons taking part in an exercise with the Finnish air force, we were a little remiss on the detail. First, we referred to Finland as “the Scandinavian country” in a paragraph in which we had also mentioned the Norwegian air force, so it wasn’t at all clear which country we meant. Second, among the Typhoons we included an image of an F/A-18 Hornet, which is an entirely different aircraft, as some of our readers pointed out. All very exciting, nonetheless.

Time flies: We managed to sound confusing again in a report of some royal shenanigans, when we said that Prince Harry had been scheduled to attend an awards ceremony “which fell on the eve of the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s death this year”. The anniversary was this year, but her death was not, so it was changed to say “last”.

100 ways to die: There was an alarming convergence of metaphors in the opening paragraph of a rugby match report, where we wrote: “As Eddie Jones’s house of cards finally came crumbling down, it fittingly felt like death by a thousand paper cuts in Lyon rather than one swift blow that finished Australia off.” As regular readers are aware, I know less about sport than I do about science, but there are times when it is clear even to me that we have got a bit carried away.

I think “tumbling” would probably have been more apt, given we were talking about cards rather than concrete (and everyone who reads a newspaper has had enough of concrete). But I’ll admit defeat on the rest, except that it sounds like a rather painful series of events. Well, I’ve always said that exercise is bad for your health.

Up the creek: Talking of which, we published a terrific piece about the Olympian, novel Conservative candidate, and (quite possibly) all-round masochist James Cracknell, in which our author pictured him “skulling about under the white cliffs”. This, as reader Paul Edwards was quick to point out, is not how one spells that particular word. Both “scull” and “skull” have their origins in identically spelt Middle English words, but language has moved on a lot since 1200AD, so it’s really no excuse.

Interestingly, “scull” is also a Scots word that means “to move in a zig-zag manner”, so I wonder if it is related to the English meaning. Though that may just be a reflection of my rowing technique.

Careful where you point that thing: Roger Thetford wrote to us to suggest that our turn of phrase in a leader column last week was a little off-target. “No one – on either side of the barrel of a gun – is above the law,” we wrote, which sounds quite neat until you realise that being at the side of a gun would probably mean that you were neither the person being shot at nor the one doing the shooting. So it should really have been “end” rather than “side”.

On that note, I had better go and take aim at some more of our errors. Have a good month, and try not to lose concentration.