Mea Culpa: earlier and later American principles

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

‘So, you still believe rack is a five-letter word, do you?’ (Alamy)

In a report of Joe Biden’s condemnation of student protests on Thursday, we wrote: “He said the images of police clashing with protesters put the ‘fundamental American principles’ of free speech and the rule of law ‘to the test’, as he pointed out the importance of maintaining the latter to allow the former.” It took me a long time to work out that the president wanted to maintain the rule of law in order to allow free speech.

My rule is to avoid “the former” and “the latter” altogether – because they always require the reader to go back and check what was “the earlier” and “the later” – and to find another way to say what we are trying to say. In this case, we could have written: “He said the images of police clashing with protesters put ‘fundamental American principles … to the test’, as he pointed out the importance of maintaining the rule of law to allow freedom of speech.”

Slip-sliding away: An opinion article on Thursday declared: “If you want your child to have a screen-free life – and also have a slither of respect for you – there is no equivocation here: give up your own phone first, before you try and ban theirs.”