Mea Culpa: ring the musical gong, someone

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

‘Alright, Mr DeMille, I’m ready for my musical gong’ (AP)

We wrote this on Tuesday about Nicole Scherzinger, star of the new Sunset Boulevard, at the Olivier Awards: “She won the Best Actress in a musical gong at the Royal Albert Hall as the reinterpretation of the 1950 black comedy of the same name also picked up Best Director and Best Musical Revival.”

Mick O’Hare said he had to read it three times before he realised that it wasn’t about a “musical gong”, but a best “actress-in-a-musical” gong. And that it was not an award only for people who had appeared at the Royal Albert Hall.

It would have helped if we had had “Musical” with a capital “M”, but really the whole thing should have been rewritten. That is the trouble with using slang words such as “gong” for “award”. Apparently the word for a metal disc that you bang to make a noise came to be used to refer to a military medal, or award, because they look alike. But it is easy to forget that it has another meaning, and that putting it next to the word “musical” might cause problems.