148 lines
4.6 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
148 lines
4.6 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
topics
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about-us
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style-book
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simon-heffers-style-notes
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4939395
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-----
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# Style notes 16: March 4 2009
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6:57PM GMT 04 Mar 2009
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Dear Colleagues
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I cannot overemphasize how important it is to read stories back before you
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publish them to the web. We are now habitually printing homophones of the
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words we intended to write because of writers' failure to superintend the
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spell checker. Here are just a few: who's for whose; plumb for plum;
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hyperthermia for hypothermia; diffuse for defuse; there for their; it's for
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its; reign for rain; hole for whole; well-healed for well-heeled; and the
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misuse of each of pallet, palate and palette. Our readers notice these slips
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and our credibility is impaired by them. So please check the sense of what you
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have written.
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We need to be careful in our choice of words. "Paranoid" has a specific
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medical meaning and should not be used casually to describe a person's sense
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of insecurity. Medical opinion appears to be divided on whether Asperger's
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syndrome is a mental illness, so caution should be used before describing it
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as such. The recent controversy about Bishop Williamson prompts us to be
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careful about how we describe him. He is not a Roman Catholic bishop; he is a
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bishop of the Society of St Pius who happens to be a Roman Catholic. His
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excommunication has been reversed but he is not yet in communion with the
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church. The Crown Estate confers no financial benefit on the Queen or her
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family. We had a reference to Lord Paul Myners. He isn't. He is Lord Myners.
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He would be Lord Paul Myners only if he were the younger son of a duke or a
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marquess whose family name was Myners.
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There is a difference between the verbs "convince" and "persuade", which the
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dictionary explains and which we should take care to observe. The term
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"paramedic" describes something specific within health care and should not be
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used generally to describe anyone other than a doctor who works in this area.
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Not all commercial planes are jets: the one that crashed at Buffalo recently
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was a turboprop. Not all civil servants are mandarins: only very senior ones.
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Not all Tories are grandees; only very senior ones with established power and
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influence in the party. A car cannot collide with a tree: the tree would have
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to be moving too, which it usually isn't. To refute something is not the same
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as to reject it. Phenomena is a plural. The plural of foot is feet: phrases
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like "six foot tall" are unacceptable. Gotten is a word in the America
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language, but not the English one. Neither impact nor partner is a verb. Going
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forward is banned: in the future is an acceptable substitute. The entry in the
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style book on "begging the question" should be read by anyone planning to use
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the phrase.
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There have been some difficulties with factual errors too, and these also
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highlight the importance of checking what you have written. A news story
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recently had a man aged 59 in one paragraph and 60 in another. Most
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embarrassingly, we asserted that "dozens" of men had died with Captain Scott
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at the South Pole. The latter was an error in a press release. It goes without
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saying that any fact encountered in a press release or in agency copy should
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not be considered as accurate until the writer has verified it is so.
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Finally, here are some grammatical points. One in 25 people is something, not
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are something. And you cannot have the best of two, nor can one of two be the
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most something: it is better and more respectively.
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With best wishes
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Simon Heffer
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Associate Editor
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The Daily Telegraph
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/about-us/style-book/simon-heffers-style-
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notes/4939395/Style-notes-16-March-4-2009.html
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Telegraph
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## [Simon Heffer's Style Notes][6]
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[X][1] Share & bookmark
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[What are these?][2]
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Share:
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* [ ][1]
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* [ ][3]
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* [ ][4]
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* [Tweet][5]
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* Advertisement
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![][7]
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[EDITOR'S CHOICE »][8]
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Composer, musician, poet and author whose writing provided a vivid commentary
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