Mea Culpa: police forces getting a move on

Questions of style and the use of English in last week’s Independent, adjudicated by John Rentoul

You’d better move on: police keep a watchful eye over a protester at the National March for Palestine in London last month (AFP/Getty)

In a report on the government’s plan to change the policing of pro-Palestinian marches, we said: “The prime minister’s official spokesperson said police forces would label such demonstrations ‘intimidatory’ and move on protesters under a new policing protocol.” Keen as Rishi Sunak may be to be reported as “cracking down” on marches that many Conservative MPs dislike, we think his spokesperson meant “move protesters on” not “move on protesters”, which is a bit different.

Dead language: In Monday’s review of something called Celeb Big Brother, we said its “‘Live Launch’ feels like it’s still got a touch of rigour mortis about it”. The Latin phrase is rigor mortis, referring to the stiffness of a corpse. The word acquired a “u” in British (but not American) English, but has now evolved from “stiffness” to mean strictness.

Do we mean us? In an article about the prospect of another Donald Trump presidency, we said that something about it would be “no less damaging to we Europeans”. Thanks to Bernard Theobald for reminding us that this should have been “us Europeans”. I don’t know my accusative from a hole in the ground, but decide such things by the test of leaving out the last word. It would be “no less damaging to us”.