Mea Culpa: the strange tale of Donald Trump and the Chinese dumplings

John Rentoul reviews the use and abuse of the English language in The Independent over the past week

Penny Mordaunt definitely did not ‘wield’ the sword around the King at his coronation (Getty)

In our report of the decision of a US court against Donald Trump and in favour of E Jean Carroll, his accuser, we reported that the former president had been found “liable for wonton disregard, for which Ms Carroll was awarded $20,000”. I don’t know if the writer’s subconscious made a connection between Mr Trump and a Chinese dumpling, but we meant “wanton”, as in careless.

From the Old English meaning “badly trained”, it is a rare word, surviving in a few legal contexts and some romantic literature, so it is not surprising that people can be thrown by its spelling.

The power of sight: One foible of journalese, that special dialect of English, is the ability of inanimate objects and abstract nouns to see things. We had a good example of it in our report that British retailers feared empty supermarket shelves when the next lot of post-Brexit customs checks are imposed: “The warning comes after severe shortages of tomatoes, peppers and other salad vegetables earlier this year saw Britain’s major supermarkets forced to restrict sales.”

A shortage acquiring the power of sight sounds like one of those exam questions in 1066 And All That: “Explain, with diagrams.” The sentence was easily fixed by changing it to “forced Britain’s major supermarkets to restrict sales”.

Mordaunt the Magnificent: In our round-up of social media reaction to Penny Mordaunt, the lord president of the council, at the coronation, we used some strange language to describe what she did with the sword of offering. We said she “wielded” it, which is an active word originally meaning “compelled, tamed, subdued”, which would mean she was waving the sword about, taming and subduing Nick Cave and the younger Parker Bowleses.

We also said she “carried the sword aloft” and “upheld” it, both of which imply above shoulder height to any student of early warfare or fantasy fiction.

As Paul Edwards wrote to point out, we seemed to say she did pretty much everything with the sword except the simple and factual “she carried it upright”. She did it well, and sometimes it needs just plain English to convey it.

Hear this: In another article about the coronation, we said that some of the proceedings were inaudible, but “there were four big words that no one missed: ‘God save the King!’ as exalted by the archbishop”. We meant “exhorted”, as in urging someone to do something, in this case urging God to save the King. “Exalted” sounds similar, but means speaking highly of someone. That is like what Justin Welby was doing, but if that was what we meant, we should have said something like “the archbishop exalted the King by exhorting God to save him”.

Going on and on: In an article about celebrity sex lives on Tuesday, which I read for the purposes of literary criticism, we recalled the occasion three years ago when Jada Pinkett Smith on her own TV show admitted an extramarital relationship: “Her husband Will, meanwhile, sat opposite her, looking somewhat heartbroken, and openly discussed the state of their marriage. It ended up serving as a blueprint moving forward.” That last was, as Mick O’Hare observed, a sentence that was two words too long.