Mea Culpa: Labouring the point amid an antiquated system

Sub-editor Zak Thomas on questions of style and usage in this week’s Independent

The knight stuff: Sir Keir Starmer’s title has caused some confusion in recent months (Getty)

John Rentoul is taking a break from this column for a couple of weeks so I thought I’d use this opportunity to check up on The Independent’s progress with a few of the subbing desk’s ongoing campaigns to rid these pages of particular words and phrases.

Go on then: Arguably our most important ongoing campaign is the ongoing campaign against the use of ongoing. The word is one of John’s pet hates, the reader rarely gains anything from its use and I’d be slightly concerned if we were reporting on news that is not ongoing. Politicians often use the word and there’s not much we can do about it in reported speech, but from a quick browse of this week’s Daily Editions I have found 14 unnecessary uses. I’m sure our readers are aware of the “ongoing pandemic”, which was mentioned twice in one article on Tuesday. Clearly there is more ongoing work to be done.

Stuck in the middle with you: Amid the new normal of home working, our sub-editors are still doing their best to avoid the use of amid in headlines. As John has mentioned before, it’s the standard journalese device for implying cause and effect without saying so. But it’s a lazy word and often we can find a more interesting way of writing a headline. I’m happy to report that from Sunday to Thursday the Daily Edition’s headlines were amid-less.

Come as you are: My colleague Ross McKinnon has been waging a one-man war against the use of “it comes as” for more than a year. As he says, it is a phrase “no one would say in everyday language”. So how did we fare this week? I could find only three uses.

A knight to remember: Finally, the election of Sir Keir Starmer to Labour’s top job appears to have exposed a lot of confusion over antiquated titles. While I’m sure many of my colleagues rightly believe the honours system should be scrapped, it is our style (in news stories) to recognise knighthoods when they have been awarded. It should be Sir Keir Starmer on first mention and then Sir Keir throughout the rest of the copy, but I often find myself having to re-knight him on first mention. As for Sir Ed Davey, the poor Lib Dem is rarely honoured by our journalists.