Mea Culpa: Turbocharging the Banned List

The main problem in trying to discourage colleagues from using “turbocharge” is how to spell it. The Oxford dictionary has it as one word, but I couldn’t find it on our website because I was searching for it in that form – in fact we used it several times last week, either hyphenated or as two words.

The recent vogue started with Matt Hancock in the Conservative leadership election. He was keen on turbocharging things, and, when he withdrew after the first ballot of MPs, the other candidates started using the word. Jeremy Hunt told us how his plans would turbocharge the economy almost as often as he reminded us he had been an entrepreneur.

Anyway, Jess Phillips, the Labour MP, has petitioned the court to have it added to the Banned List. By the authority vested in me, and using the special fast-track procedure, this has now been done.

We would have fallen foul of this ruling last week, when we said that a possible cut in stamp duty might “turbo-charge the housing market”. Most of the times we used the word, however, we were quoting Boris Johnson, and I am afraid my writ does not run as far as 10 Downing Street.

However, in a ballet review we also praised Svetlana Zakharova’s performance in the Bolshoi’s Spartacus as Crassus’s mistress Aegina, “a turbo-charged vamp who is all plots and slinking poses”. I quite like that, and am prepared to make an exception for it, but we should lose the hyphen.

Access denied: We had this headline on a report about football: “Sixfold increase in players accessing mental health aid.” Access as a verb is a weak word. “Receiving” would have been better, or “treated for mental health problems”. At least we didn’t call it a 500 per cent increase, the kind of sensationalised statistic of which we have occasionally been guilty in the past.

Irregular: In our reporting of the Tour de France, we commented on the storms that disrupted it: “The extremes of 40 degree heat and snowstorms are going to interrupt this race more regularly as the climate crisis deepens.” We meant more frequently, or more often: extreme weather of this kind does not tend to occur at predictable intervals.

Give it a rest(aurant): In a travel article about Malta, we wrote about “the eatery-encrusted streets of St Julian’s”. I am all for a bit of variety of vocabulary, but, after that one, I am off to the drinkery.