Errors & Omissions: Beleaguered by the forces of bad spelling and clichés

“Beleaguered” ought to be banned, except when applied to a city, town or castle with turrets. Not just because it is a cliché, but because it is hard to spell. We got it wrong in our report of plagiarism allegations against Adele on Tuesday. Instead of saying sales of her new album have been brisk, we said that with them she was “single-handedly propping up the beleagured music industry”.

Having used the first paragraph to disclose that she is a popular musician with a new record out, the second began: “But now one of that album’s most acclaimed tracks… has become embroiled in a plagiarism row.” That should almost be a “so” rather than a “but”. Adele is being accused of plagiarism because she is successful and famous, not despite it.

µ “Campaigners call for limits on powers of sharia courts,” ran a headline on Monday. Campaigners is one of those words, like experts, that ought to be discouraged in news reports and banned altogether in headlines. These campaigners included the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation, the Quilliam Foundation, the National Secular Society and A C Grayling. What they have in common is that they are opposed to sharia courts, so the headline was tautological. Better to have reported what they said, such as: “Opponents of sharia courts deny ‘racism’ charge.”

µ We have to be careful about libel, but sometimes we just put in an “allegedly” without thinking about the sense. On Thursday we reported that Peter Tatchell, the human rights activist, had condemned the Stop the War Coalition “for allegedly failing to allow anti-Assad Syrians to speak at a meeting”. He did not condemn it for “allegedly failing”. It would have been fine to write that he “accused it of failing to allow anti-Assad Syrians to speak”. That would make it clear that Stop the War might have a different view of what happened.

µ Being an easy-going liberal curmudgeon, I accept that language changes, and that “sat” or “was sat” is sometimes used instead of “sitting”. But this can lead to confusion. On Thursday we said: “When you remember that the Leader of the Opposition sat at home makes up 33 per cent of the television audience...” It looks like a muddling of tenses unless you read it as “sitting at home”.

µ On Thursday we said the clothing company North Face was “named after the coldest and least forgiving side of any mountain”. I am grateful to Roger Chapman for pointing out that, in the southern hemisphere, the south face is the cold side.

µ The word “future” can often be struck out. On Tuesday, we said: “For any MP, becoming a minister is the pinnacle of their political career: a red box, civil servants to do your bidding and a small role forging the future direction of the country.” On Thursday, we said the Bank of England was “split over how soon to force banks to build up extra capital against a future crisis”. When banks are forced to put money aside in case of crises in the past, we should worry.

Guy Keleny is away