Mea Culpa: Starting a fire in a river

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

We should be cautious not to overuse metaphors in our reporting (Getty/iStock)

One of the best titles of an autobiography is Sparks Fly!, by Frank Chapple, the general secretary of the electricians’ union who enjoyed provoking communists and people he regarded as their fellow travellers in the labour movement. “Sparks” is a lively word, often used by journalists when they write about an event causing an argument or another reaction. It is useful, especially for headlines, because it is short.

However, we should use it sparingly, and remember that the analogy is with sparks starting a fire. It didn’t feel right that, in a “news in brief” report, we spoke of Nicola Bulley’s disappearance “sparking a huge search operation”, much of which took place in a river. Other words, such as “prompting” or “starting”, are available, even if they might not be so dramatic.

Partial history: The first item in our “On this day” feature on Wednesday read thus: “1606: The Union Flag became England’s official flag.” This is true, but it omits material facts, as Iain Brodie pointed out. One is that it also became the flag of Scotland; another is that it was not the same flag as the union flag of today, which dates from 1801, because it didn’t include the red diagonals from St Patrick’s cross for Ireland.