Errors & Omissions: An overwhelming election victory is not a ‘landslide’

Mistaken metaphors, useless words and hanging participles in this week's Independent

A Voices piece on Tuesday made use of one of the most widely abused political expressions: “The near unity in the Cabinet over Iraq [in 2003] arose partly because Tony Blair had won a second landslide election.” A landslide election is not just a big, decisive win. It brings about a change in the political landscape. When the dust settles, you look round and everything is different.

The elections referred to here are those of 1997 and 2001. The numbers of Commons seats won by the major parties at those two elections were as follows:

1997: Lab 418; Con 165; Lib Dem 46.

2001: Lab 412; Con 166; Lib Dem 52.

Certainly, they were both big, decisive wins for Labour under the leadership of Mr Blair. The first was a landslide, bringing in a new government. The second was not: as the figures show, it left the political landscape almost exactly the same as it had been before.

µ “Wracking his brains, the 48-year-old kept returning to the classic Western Shane.” So said a piece about an interview with the actor Kiefer Sutherland in last Saturday’s Radar arts supplement.

“Wrack” is possibly the most troublesome, useless word in the language. As a verb it is an unnecessary synonym for “wreck” or “ruin”. As a noun it means bits and pieces from a shipwreck, or seaweed washed up on the shore. How often do most of us need to write about seaweed washed up on the shore?

No, Mr Sutherland was racking his brains. That is to say, torturing them, as if by stretching them on a rack. Similarly, a worrying experience may be said to be “nerve-racking”. That’s almost all there is to “rack” used as a verb; in fact, it is almost as useless as “wrack”. There is a good deal to be said for avoiding them both.

µ Last Saturday we ran a story about a hamlet that lies in the path of the HS2 railway line. Here is the introductory blurb: “Facing extinction when the rail link is built, residents of a tiny Staffordshire settlement applied for relocation – but were cruelly ignored.”

I’ve seen some hanging participles in my time, but that “facing” is a monster. Things may be pretty bad for the residents, but they are not facing extinction.

µ This is from a political analysis piece published last Saturday: “But there is still one piece of the jigsaw missing – the Labour Opposition, which sunk Cameron two years ago when Ed Miliband pulled the rug on him.”

The colourful variety of our irregular verbs is under constant threat. We are used to reading “shrunk” for “shrank” (as in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids), but “sunk” for “sank” is less common. Remember that the past tense of “sink” is “sank”; “sunk” is the past participle only.

Incidentally, you may also be struck by the colourful variety of the metaphors in this sentence. The switch from a jigsaw puzzle to a rug by way of something sinking is perhaps too swift.