Mea Culpa: Spotlight on the spelling of a brand name

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

‘Tonight the super trouper beams are gonna blind me’: the Abba Voyage virtual concert (PA)

In a fine article about artists who have objected to their music being used by politicians, a disparaging reference was made to “Super Trouper”, the 1980 Abba song. That was what our author wrote but someone trying to be helpful changed it to “Trooper”. Thanks to reader John Schluter, it has now been changed back and the story can be told.

“Troop” and “troupe” were originally the same word, meaning a group of people, but were imported into English from French at different times. The earlier version, which had its spelling anglicised, is used mainly to refer to a military unit. The later one, which retained the French spelling, applied to a company of performers, actors or dancers.

Which is why, when Strong Lighting of Omaha, Nebraska, wanted a brand name for its powerful spotlight, used to follow performers in theatres and at outdoor concerts, it came up with the rhyming “Super Trouper” in 1956. Deep Purple were the first band to record a song with that title, in 1973. As with Abba, it was about the rigours of touring and the irony of being blinded by the light, a metaphor for the burden of fame.

A “Super Trooper”, on the other hand, is a toy in the GI Joe series, a soldier similar to Action Man.

Higher or lower? On Thursday, we reported that a 103-year-old man from India “has married a woman more than half his age”. Is that older or younger than 51-and-a-half? Fortunately, we also reported the bride’s age: “Habib Nazar tied the knot with 49-year-old Firoz Jaha.” Thanks to Roger Thetford, who thought this was as nonsensical as the “better than half price” sometimes used in supermarket adverts.

We should have said Mr Nazar had married someone “younger than half his age”.

But tigers: In an article about attacks on Russian villagers by Amur tigers, an endangered species also known as Siberian tigers, we concluded: “The reasons for the recent spate of attacks are not clear, however it could be linked to destruction of the tiger’s natural habitat, according to conservation experts.”

As Paul Edwards pointed out, the convention is that “however” is not a conjunction – that is, a joining word linking two parts of a sentence. It shouldn’t be used, as we used it here, as a simple substitute for “but”. However, it would have been all right if it had been the start of a new sentence and followed by a comma.

Donald Trump’s feet: In what Bernard Theobald described as a “depressing article about the likely next Trump presidency”, we wrote: “Trump has also towed a careful line on globalisation.” It is not clear where the metaphor comes from, but it was originally to do with soldiers or sailors keeping their feet behind a line on the ground or deck, so it should be “toed a careful line”. The mental image of a boat towing a rope behind it makes no sense.

Incoming: In a report of crowd trouble at the football match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and West Bromwich Albion, we said: “Objects were pelted at Wolves’ Tommy Doyle as he prepared to take a corner.” The word “pelt” is usually used the other way round, as if seen from the target’s point of view, so we should have said that “Doyle was pelted with objects”.

Did they or didn’t they? “Better safeguards may have saved me...” ran a headline on Monday of an article about the abuse of mental health patients. That leaves it unclear in the reader’s mind whether the safeguards did or did not save the victim. We meant “might”: in other words, if there had been better safeguards there would have been a chance of the victim being saved.

Thanks to Richard Thomas, and apologies to him for doing it again on Thursday, when we reported: “Gabrielle may have lost her baby.” It was clear from the rest of the article that her baby survived. We meant that she “might” have lost her baby – if an emergency caesarean had not been carried out.