Mea Culpa: let no one put the marbles asunder

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

The disputed marbles, in the British Museum (Getty)

Our attempt to use an interesting word resulted in our saying the opposite of what we intended in an article about the Parthenon sculptures in the British Museum: “Starting in 1801, Lord Elgin, then British ambassador to the Ottoman empire, spliced these pieces from their bases, and in 1816 he sold them to the museum, where they have been displayed since.” Thanks to Roger Thetford, who thought we meant “sliced”, because “spliced” means join together, as in marriage, originally referring to ropes, which are connected by interweaving the strands.

Did it happen? Thanks to Paul Edwards for spotting a couple of times when the use of “may” instead of “might” might have caused confusion. In an article about the success of Yellowjackets, the TV drama, we said: “The show’s rise to prominence, however, may never have happened if it were not for one critical factor …” It is reasonably clear what we mean, but there will be some readers who will trip over the possibility that the show’s success has not in fact happened. (The critical factor, by the way, was the decision to release one episode a week rather than dumping the whole series online at once.)

Then, in a report of the real-life courtroom drama in Australia over Novak Djokovic’s visa, we accurately reported a statement issued by the Federal Court: “Another person in the position of the minister may have not cancelled Mr Djokovic’s visa.” On the face of it, this implies that there is another person in the position of the minister, a doppelganger of Alex Hawke, the Australian immigration minister, who had made the opposite decision at the same time.