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Mea Culpa: Due diligence

Susanna Richards considers the flouting of stylistic convention in last week’s Independent

Saturday 25 November 2023 12:00 GMT
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Dr Philippe Pinel oversees the removal of chains from a patient – let’s call her Melody – at the Paris asylum for women who do not care for grammatical prescriptiveness
Dr Philippe Pinel oversees the removal of chains from a patient – let’s call her Melody – at the Paris asylum for women who do not care for grammatical prescriptiveness (Getty)

In a novel departure from one of our frequent journalistic transgressions, the subheadline of a report on the Israel-Hamas war last week read: “Supplies of food and water ‘practically non-existent’ as the Gaza Strip is plunged into blackouts thanks to fuel shortages”. It was peculiar to see the phrase “thanks to” used in these circumstances: I don’t think anyone is especially grateful for the shortage of petrol and diesel in the territory, and I’m sure we didn’t intend to introduce a sarcastic tone, so I think, really, we can say that was misplaced.

The thing we normally do is controversial in itself among those who care about grammar, and that is to use “due to” in a similar context. The original edition of our stylebook states that “‘due to’ needs a noun to refer to”, so “His absence was due to illness” is permissible while “He was absent due to illness” is not. As the latest edition admits, this is very much a losing battle, but I think it is one that is still worth the effort, just because my old-fashioned ears prefer it when we do it as prescribed.

The substitutes I generally invoke are “because of” and “as a result of”; I think the first of these would have worked in the subheadline about Gaza. I’ve seen “owing to” used effectively, but I think that is not far different from “due to” so tend to avoid it. I’ll admit this is a personal preference; as the esteemed author (and my good friend) Oliver Kamm notes in his book Accidence Will Happen: The Non-Pedantic Guide to English, “Like regarding or concerning, owing is a participle that has come to be used as a preposition. There’s nothing wrong in that.”

He’s right, of course, as he usually is, and he is also probably right that we shouldn’t mind “due to” as a prepositional phrase – in his authoritative view, it is “fully grammatical and appropriate to any form of prose” – but I’m one of the sticklers he refers to, and sticklers gonna stickle.

Unconventional usage: We said in an article about attempts by the government to revive a distinctly ailing Rwanda plan: “It comes as the PM comes under growing pressure from Suella Braverman and the Tory right to flaunt international law by ‘disapplying’ the European Convention on Human Rights.” Bernard Theobald kindly wrote to point out that we had meant to say “flout”. To flaunt means to display ostentatiously, while to flout means to (openly) disregard, in reference to a doctrine, a rule, (a) convention, or sometimes all of these things at once.

It’s easy enough to confuse the two words, but we should know better. On another note, that second “comes” would have been better replaced with a simple “is”.

Slings ’n’ narrows: We muddled our spelling in a related report, where we wrote that the former home secretary had once again called for the UK to “leave the ‘straightjacket’ of human rights laws” that had rumbled the deportation scheme. Thanks to Roger Thetford for drawing our attention to the error: it should have said “straitjacket”, the word “strait” describing the close-fitting nature of the garment.

The etymologies of these two homophones are divergent: strait comes from the Latin strictus via Old French estreit, meaning narrow or constricted, while straight is from the Old English streht, meaning stretched, or taut I suppose. But it’s unsurprising that their similarity catches people out.

Cold comfort: “Global temperature goes beyond 2C for first time” declared a somewhat surreal headline last week on a report about the climate crisis. The article did make clear, eventually, that the figure referred to the increase in temperature rather than the actual temperature – with a scientist explaining that “this was the first day when global temperature was more than 2C above 1850-1900 (or pre-industrial) levels” – but the headline read as though we had been subsisting in an environment close to freezing point since the world began and might be about to see a slight thaw. Not quite the effect we had in mind.

Over the limit: A comment piece on excessive drinking and what can be done about it began with the words: “It all started with a small bottle of Babycham, aged 14.” Reader Henry Peacock was correct to point out that the vintage referred to the author, rather than the bottle, and the sentence was amended.

Functional error: Another headline in our Daily Edition – “Starmer reiterates Corbyn’s days as Labour MP are over” – also drew the attention of Mr Peacock, who suggested that “repeats” would have been a better word to use. His reasoning was that “reiterate” originally referred to the process of doing a mathematical calculation again. I agree with him in a sense, as it is often best to use a short and familiar term where possible rather than one that some readers might not understand. But if we are going to get into the nitty-gritty of original meanings, then I will have to refer Mr Peacock to the origin of the word, the Latin verb itero, which just means “repeat”.

Writing is always a matter of taste as well as regulation; it is broadly accepted that there are stylistic conventions we must adhere to, but they are as variable as the people defining them. We cannot be too prescriptive or strait-laced. A little diligence here and there, though, can be a good thing.

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