Mea Culpa: new usage peaking too early

Questions of style and language in last week’s Independent, adjudged by John Rentoul

‘And then I go and spoil it all by saying summit stupid...’: Frank and Nancy Sinatra discuss the lyrics of their 1967 chart-topper (Getty)

The headline on our revolting story about Mount Everest used “summit” as a verb: “Everest climbers told to bring poo bags to summit ‘stinking’ mountain.” I  was confused, because it read to me as if a word had been left out, and it meant to say “summit of”.

But the article itself said that “climbers will now be obliged to bring their excreta back to base camp in poo bags after summiting the world’s tallest mountain”, so the headline was simply repeating that usage.

I realise that climbers use “to summit” as a verb, but I don’t think that this sense of the word has become widespread enough to avoid ambiguity. We should try to avoid jargon. In plain English, people climb mountains rather than “summit” them.