Mea Culpa: Boris Johnson in triple negative horror

John Rentoul on questions of style and usage in last week’s Independent

Our headline had Boris Johnson doubling back on himself more than once (Getty)

We briefly had a triple negative headline on the front page of our website last week: “PM resists calls to scrap eased Christmas Covid rules.” It has to be read backwards: the reader starts with the Covid rules, which have been eased for Christmas; then people have called for the easing to be scrapped; and finally, the prime minister has resisted them. 

That is too many reversals in just nine words. Something like this would have been easier to grasp: “PM insists Covid rules will be eased for Christmas.” Although he has since reversed his position. 

Off to Africa: In a report of the furore over Kay Burley’s rule-breaking 60th birthday party, we said: “Ms Burley has said she will not front Sky News in the coming weeks due to a pre-planned holiday to Africa.” Ignoring the use of “front” as a verb (“present” is more conventional English), Andrew Ruddle pointed out that we did not need the “pre-” prefix, because “planned” means something that has been arranged in advance.  

I once tangled with Daniel Finkelstein of The Times on this point, when I said that I thought those stickers on minicabs that said “Pre-Booked Only” were grammatically fine (this was in pre-Uber days). I thought that they were easier to understand than a sticker that said: “Booked Only.” I still think I was right, but Ms Burley’s “planned holiday” would certainly have been more elegant.  

Fake nudes: We reported one of those marvellous single-sentence news stories thus: “Several people in London were duped into being filmed naked after being convinced they were taking part in a fake ‘nude game show’, police say.” We nearly got it right, but as John Harrison wrote to say, the word “fake” was not just unnecessary but turned the story into nonsense. The dupes were not convinced the game show was fake; the point is that they thought it was genuine. 

No more: We write “anymore” as one word more often than as two. Paul Edwards doesn’t think we should, and I agree with him. Last week, for instance, I think we should have said, “A world in which no one sings Bee Gees songs any more is hard to imagine”; “I’m honestly not really thinking about that any more”; and “Mr Johnson doesn’t attend [EU] council meetings any more”. Isn’t that better?

Pipe him out: In an article about the gradual extension of the authority of the International Criminal Court, we wrote that Omar al-Bashir, the former president of Sudan, “frequently flaunted the court’s jurisdiction by travelling abroad”. That has been changed to “flouted” thanks to Steven Fogel, who reminded us of the difference between flaunt, meaning “show off” something, and flout, meaning “disregard” – usually in a rather show-offy way, which is why the confusion arises. According to the Oxford dictionary, flout probably comes from the same Dutch root as flute, meaning to whistle at someone in derision.