Mea Culpa: A time to mend

Susanna Richards finds she is not for turning in last week’s Independent

Friend or foe? A child regards her grandmother-turned-wolf with a degree of scepticism (Getty)

In a strangely compelling news report that involved the American president-elect, some UFOs and some hamburgers, we said: “After calling for the flying objects to be shot down on Friday when one flew over his Bedminster golf course, Trump on Saturday used the talking point to attack his former friend-turned-adversary.”

There was no need for the “former” in this instance, because that is implied by the word “turned”; indeed, the sentence as it stood could have been interpreted by someone with pedantic tendencies [Anyone in mind? – Ed] as meaning that the person had turned from a friend to an adversary and thence into something else.

This formula has become fashionable – everyone and their granny seems to be a something-turned-something these days – and there is nothing really wrong with it, but it should always be handled with care. As should the word “turn” in general, it seems: we ran another news item about a man who had got into trouble over a shooting and been issued with an order that required him “to turn his guns and ammunition into police within 48 hours”. Quite a tricky transformation, I imagine.

The issue here was not so much with the turning as with the running together of two words that should have been separate: “in” and “to”. But we are more likely to cause an incident when we use the (mostly American) phrase “turn in” instead of, say, “hand in”, so that is one for our US colleagues to watch.

All Greek to me: An unusual plural form caught our attention in an interview with a composer last week, in which we said: “[Lin-Manuel] Miranda, of course, knows a thing or two about creating cultural phenomenons himself.”

The use of “phenomenons” is itself a bit of a phenomenon. It is not incorrect, according to some sources, but it is uncommon: by far the prevailing form is “phenomena”, even to the extent that it finds itself used frequently, and erroneously, in place of the singular.

A recent example of that appeared in an engrossing report about computers that use something called qubits, which we explained “make use of a quantum phenomena known as superposition to exist in two states at once” – a bit like Kansas City, I suppose, or the Vatican. I can’t claim to have understood it, but it was otherwise beautifully written and I am sure it made sense to those who know about these things.

“Phenomenon” comes almost directly from a Greek word, and as such the convention is that we keep it as it is for the singular and change the ending to an “a” when talking about more than one. Given that so many people don’t seem to know or care which is which, it’s not a big deal, but any departure from the norm can be distracting for our readers, so it’s probably wisest to stick to the rules.

Self-preservation: We published a hilarious article last week about the joys and otherwise (mostly otherwise) of living in an old stone cottage in the countryside. “Another time, I fell forward and hit my head on the decapitation-capable door jam at the stair’s foot,” wrote the author, inadvertently tripping up our sub-editors with an unexpected homophone.

The accident he described did not, I submit, involve a jar of fruit preserve: the correct spelling in the context is “jamb”, which comes from the French word for leg and refers to the upright parts of a doorframe. Joinery has a complex language all of its own, with even a simple door containing numerous oddly named components, for instance stiles, lintels and muntins. As our author discovered, it is best to tread carefully around these things, or you can end up, well, in a bit of a jam.

Sitting target: It is a long time since I have asked for anything for Christmas. This is because I know I can never have the things I really want, which are roughly as follows: comfortable underwear, enigmatic beauty, and people to stop writing “chairman” in our articles. The last of these is perhaps more achievable than the other two, and things are on the up – we’ve only said it 87 times this week, compared with 242 when the campaign began – but even so, despite our best efforts, it seems impossible to eradicate completely.

Often the person in question is actually a man, but sometimes they are not, so it is much simpler to say “chair” – a description that is in such common usage that there is no real risk of confusing a human with an item of furniture. (Though a friend once posited the similarity of a cat to a table: both have a leg at each corner, and neither can be easily persuaded to go through a cat flap.) Anyway, be assured that we will not rest, lounge or recline until the job is done.

It only remains to wish you all a happy new year, and to thank you for being the finest pedants we could wish for. We hope you enjoy all this as much as we do. Until next time, should former acquaintances-turned-adversaries be forgot? I think that might be sensible.