Mea Culpa: cement to stick us together or to keep us apart?

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

Jacinda Ardern, prime minister of New Zealand, giving her victory speech … nothing to do with cement (AP)

We originally put a headline on Isabelle Jani-Friend’s article about her cystic fibrosis that said: “Vulnerable people shielding since March are fed up of being ignored.” It is a matter of taste to prefer “fed up with”, but as she says she is “fed up with” in the article itself, it seemed only polite to change the headline to match. 

Like many readers, including Paul Edwards, who wrote to me about it, I was taught that it should be “bored with” and “fed up with”, so we should avoid the “of” form in any case, but if the writer herself uses “with”, the argument is doubly made. 

Cement mixer: Paul Edwards is responsible for most of this column this week (thanks for all the emails; do let me know if you see something that doesn’t seem right: j.rentoul@independent.co.uk). He also pointed out the mixed metaphor in the headline on Alastair Campbell’s article about the US election: “This election has cemented the divisions tearing America apart.” Wouldn’t cement be a way of sealing the divisions and holding America together? 

On this occasion, it was Campbell himself who mangled his metaphor, writing: “This election, and especially Trump’s handling of it, has cemented, rather than eroded, the divisions tearing America apart.” Perhaps he was thinking of the division as a wall – an understandable analogy in Donald Trump’s case – which was reinforced with cement, as opposed to being worn down. But a wall doesn’t tear a country apart: that implies a crack opening up in the earth. 

I can understand us not wanting to rewrite Campbell’s copy, but we could have found a better part to turn into a headline, or we could have rewritten it: “This election has widened the divisions tearing America apart.”

More building work: Cementing things is generally a poor figure of speech. We also used it in a report that Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, had hinted at marrying her fiance. “Last month she led her Labour Party to a landslide victory in the general election, cementing her second term in office,” we said. This is quite wrong, suggesting that she had already won a second term, and that the election had reinforced her hold on it. “Securing” would have been a better word. 

Left dangling: In an editorial cautiously welcoming the Pfizer vaccine, we warned that it may not be effective against coronavirus mutations: “Like the cold and flu viruses, the researchers may find themselves in a constant game of catch-up …” Thanks again to Paul Edwards for pointing this out. There is no need to be hung up about dangling participles (or whatever it is), except when they produce ambiguity. 

When I read it, I thought we might be saying that the researchers are like the cold and flu viruses, in that they are constantly adapting to try to gain an advantage as humans develop immunity. Which might have been clever, but it wasn’t what we meant. What we meant was that the researchers may find themselves in a constant game of catch-up, as they are with the cold and flu viruses. So the sentence should have started “As with” instead of “Like”.