Mea Culpa: a short headline word causes trouble amid ambiguity

The old journalistic standby “amid” is a useful word, especially in headlines. It is short, and can link two things without necessarily saying one is caused by the other. But we probably use it too often.

Yesterday we said: “May could face another humiliating defeat in Commons amid open Tory rebellion.” The reader can work out that the humiliating defeat would be the result of the Tory rebellion, rather than the two things happening to occur at the same time.

The headline could be turned round thus: “Open Tory rebellion threatens another humiliating Commons defeat for May.” But I realise that “May facing defeat” is the important bit and should come first. So we could have written this: “May could face another humiliating defeat in Commons with Tories in open rebellion.”

Amid further ambiguity: The potential ambiguity of “amid” was illustrated by another headline yesterday: “Apple selling older iPhones again in Germany amid major argument.” I thought that could have been “provoking” instead of “amid”, but it turns out it was the other way round. Apple is selling older iPhones because of a dispute with Qualcomm, which supplies the chips for the latest models. The headline could have said: “...because of dispute with supplier”.

Mass production: In an opinion article on Syria we wrote about “suicide bombing on an industrial scale”. I think the time has come to turn off the conveyor belt of the “on an industrial scale” cliche.

Happily ever after: Thanks to Stefan Stern for pointing out that, “years after the word was added to the Banned List, people are still saying ‘narrative’ far too often and are never referring to a novel or fairy tale”. He said he was disappointed on my behalf.

We did indeed use the word several times in forbidden contexts this week, including one reference to Sir Philip Green’s lawyers, who are apparently “trying to reframe the narrative”. Imagine the scene: a gaggle of lawyers, deciding that their client’s story would look better in a plain black John Lewis border than in the ornate, curlicued frame in which it was found in the attic.

Driver coach and horses: In an article about humankind’s responsibility for the extinction of larger animals, we wrote that “hunting for food, medicine and other uses was the main driver of their decline”. I think “driver” is confusing because it has several meanings, including a motorist and a small piece of software that can produce the blue screen of death on a computer.

Here the word “cause” would be shorter, neater and unambiguous.