Mea Culpa: Move to access a one-stop experience with your loved ones

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

The heat may be rising... but where’s the mercury? (AP)

We got our headline in a tangle when we reported that Crispin Blunt, the Conservative MP, had announced he would not be standing again at the next election: “Tory MP in row over colleague’s conviction to quit parliament.” That almost reads as if his colleague is quitting parliament, which he is, but that is not the point of the story. Blunt had upset his local Tory association by defending Imran Ahmad Khan, his fellow MP who had been convicted of sexual assault on a 15-year-old boy.

At least we didn’t use “amid” – the headline could easily have been: “Tory MP to quit parliament amid row over colleague’s conviction.” What we really needed was something like: “Tory MP to quit parliament after defending disgraced colleague.”

More than one stop: We used a Press Association story last week that said: “The Post Office is launching an in-branch money transfer service under an agreement with Western Union from autumn … The move will help to offer customers a ‘one-stop’ experience, where they can access cash, transfer money overseas to loved ones, and at the same time send letters and parcels to relatives and friends abroad.” We could at least have translated it into English before publishing it.

First, “in-branch”. Definitely not. “The Post Office is launching a money-transfer service in branches…” Second, “The move”. No. This is journalese blancmange to describe anyone deciding to do anything. “The deal” would do. Third, “a ‘one-stop’ experience”. Save us. “One-stop” is clear and meaningful enough, even if it sounds like the Post Office news release from which it was presumably copied, but “experience” is just marketing mumble. “A one-stop service” would be fine, and if we really didn’t want to repeat the word “service”, we could have said “one-stop convenience”.

Fourth, “access”. There is always a better word. In this case, it could be “obtain” or “take out”. Fifth, “loved ones”. There really ought to be a law against the phrase. There is nothing wrong with “relatives and friends”, which appears later on. But we didn’t need to specify to whom the money – or the letters and parcels – could be sent.

And, as Mick O’Hare pointed out, the sentence suggests that money cannot be transferred to other acquaintances or businesses or, indeed, to enemies, and that letters and parcels may only be sent to friends and relations. He also protested about “loved ones”, although he remained tactfully silent about the other problems with just two sentences.

Still standing: Last week we had “was sat”. This time we began a report on the local elections with this: “Stood on his doorstep in the former mining town of South Shields, Paul Ahmed, a retired firefighter and lifelong Labour voter, explains why he will be going Green …” The conventional form is “Standing on his doorstep …” Thanks to Sue Alexander again.

Weather report: We used “mercury” to mean “temperature” at least twice last week. We said that in Britain “the mercury is expected to steadily rise”, while a report on the heat in India began: “The mercury in Ahmedabad has been hitting the mid-40s for days now.” John Armitage wrote to ask how many people in this digital age are familiar with mercury thermometers, and to suggest that it might be time to retire this twee and mostly obsolete reference.

Crying out for it: A reader has written to object to this headline: “Public outcry for windfall tax on oil profits is growing.” They feel that an “outcry” cannot be in favour of something, and that this should be “call” or “support”. I disagree. I’m all for using plain language in unusual ways, as long as the meaning is clear – there’s no reason why an outcry has to be against something.