Errors & Omissions: If the joke doesn't work without context, tell it straight and explain later

It can be hard to know how much of a joke to explain if its meaning may not be immediately clear to the reader.

We had that problem in Thursday's newspaper, in reporting the Prime Minister's speech to the Parliamentary Press Gallery lunch the day before. It was essential to the news story that the joke be understood, because David Cameron told it at the expense of John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, which in the old days would have been at least a Grade II constitutional crisis.

Mr Cameron recounted an altercation between the Speaker and Simon Burns, another Conservative MP. We paraphrased thus: "An angry Mr Bercow, said the Prime Minister, stormed out of his apartment shouting, 'I'm not happy!' prompting Mr Burns to respond: 'Well, which one are you?'" For readers not aware of Mr Bercow's height, which had been the subject of the preceding four paragraphs, or not completely familiar with Walt Disney's first animated feature film, we inserted "of the Seven Dwarfs" in square brackets after the word "one". Regardless of anyone's opinion as to good taste, the reader is surely entitled to know the joke as delivered, without the irruption of a self-defeating explanation. It would have been better to have reordered the story to add a sentence after the joke saying something like: "This reference to the Seven Dwarfs was condemned by John Connerty, of a charity set up to help people with dwarfism."

Too many in a marriage: It is all too easy to trip over singular and plural words. The opening sentence of a news story on Monday read: "The Liberal Democrats have been told to regard their partnership with the Conservatives as a 'marriage' as Nick Clegg tries to calm his party's nerves over their slump in the opinion polls." The meaning is clear, but the switch from the plural Liberal Democrats to singular "his party" followed by "their" causes a mental stumble that makes it slightly harder to read. The second "their" should have been "its".

Turn it down: Also on Monday, we carried further examples of a fashion that has spread distressingly through the newspaper. In Johann Hari's essay on the pain and the delights of getting thinner, he lapsed a couple of times into capital letters. "This is like the start to an episode of Casualty! Can't you see I'm DYING?" And his evocation of memories of school PE: "Jump OVER the horse!" This infection has been contracted through texting, which does not have an italic typeface (although I am sure this is available as an add-on for a mere £4.99 on the latest fancy phones). But it is too shouty for my taste in a newspaper.

No time, ever: Another infestation seems to be under control, but there are still occasional outbreaks. A sports report on Monday said "there is no prospect of England playing a Test in Apia any time soon". Apia is the capital of Samoa. "Any time soon" is three words where one will do. Or even none in this case, as Chris Hewett, the writer, adds: "Or, indeed, ever."

Pay attention at the back: "School uniform can instill a sense of togetherness in pupils." Bah, humbug, I say to Richard Garner, our education editor, who wrote that on Thursday about Michael Gove's proposals to go back to a mythical 1950s. I expect Richard thinks school sports are a good thing too. He is entitled to his opinion, but instil has only one L at the end on this side of the Atlantic. As does fulfil. It does not make much sense, but there it is.

Comic effect: A review of books by comedians in yesterday's newspaper opened thus: "That comedy and comedians have earned an unheard-of ubiquity few would now deny." Everything about that sentence is awkward, hard to understand and, once understood, pointless. It ought to win a prize for the most convoluted way of saying: "There is a lot of it about."