Mea Culpa: raining kitty-cats and ducks on both sides of the political pond

John Rentoul casts his eye over the use of English in last week’s Independent

Slight of hand? Donald Trump points at US presidential debate rival Kamala Harris (AP)

In our editorial on Tuesday we said that the prime minister’s family had bought “a pedigree kitten cat”. After Teri Walsh, a reader, staged an intervention, the word “cat” was hastily if belatedly deleted. I had not realised that “kitten” is actually from caton, an Old North French diminutive of “cat”, but I think that most Independent readers are aware of the word for a young cat.

Trump’s trickery: In a review of the TV debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, we said that we had wondered beforehand if the biggest news from the clash would be about the economy, or global affairs … “Or maybe a personal sleight that would dominate the headlines.” That should have been “slight”, meaning insult. Thanks to Henry Peacock.

Why slight should also be an adjective meaning “small in amount” is an interesting question of etymology, as the word, from Old Norse slettr, “smooth, sleek”, evolved to mean “humble, low; of little worth or account” and thence to “treat someone as worthless”. “Sleight”, on the other hand, meaning trickery, is from a different Old Norse word, sloegeth, “cleverness, cunning, slyness”.

While on the subject of US presidential campaign debates, though, I should congratulate whoever wrote our front-page headline a few days later: “Donald ducks second TV debate with Kamala Harris.”

Beauty and pain: In an article about claims that Lucy Letby, the former nurse, is innocent of the murder charges of which she was convicted, we said that she had appointed a new barrister, Mark McDonald. We reported: “Last week he pulled together a team of 22 experts – including statisticians, forensic pathologists and aestheticians…” Linda Beeley was puzzled by the inclusion of experts in beauty. (In North America, aesthetician is another word for a beautician.) We had managed to mangle both ends of the word: we meant “anaesthetists”.

Two in one: We forced another reader, Philip Nalpanis, to read this headline twice to try to make sense of it: “Lammy criticises ‘fascist’ Russia and use of Iranian missiles ‘changes debate’.” The natural reading is that David Lammy, the foreign secretary, criticised two things: Russia and the use of Iranian missiles. But then we get to “changes debate” and realise that this is two headlines bolted together with the word “and”. In one, Lammy criticises Russia; in the other, the use (by Russia) of Iranian missiles has “changed the debate”. If we had used “as” instead of “and”, all would have been clear at the first attempt.

Taylor Swift – an apology: The art of a good headline is an elusive one, and I am not good at it, so I shouldn’t criticise. But there are some headline tricks that are so familiar that we should really try to avoid them. On Tuesday we had: “Sorry, Taylor Swift – friendships that cross political lines never work.” She had been photographed embracing Brittany Mahomes, wife of Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback and therefore teammate of Travis Kelce, Swift’s boyfriend. The premise of the article was that Brittany is “thought to be a Trump supporter”, which may seem a little thin, but it prompted some interesting observations about friendship across political divides.

However, the fake apology headline, “Sorry, Taylor Swift…”, urgently needed something less patronising, even if it was just something like “Look out, Taylor Swift…”

Americanism Watch: In an article about a new law on buses, we said that, last year, “Greater Manchester became the first place outside of London to bring bus services into public control since deregulation”. We used “outside of” six times in the last week, a computer search tells me.

It doesn’t matter much, and language changes, but “outside” is still to be preferred to “outside of”, until the newer, American form becomes more widely accepted. The same applies to “meet with”, “change up” and “advocate for”. It makes us sound more authoritative to stick with traditional British English and drop the second word.