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Susanna Richards image

Susanna Richards

Susanna Richards is senior sub-editor at The Independent. She is the author of The Independent’s new style guide, which she compiled in her spare time.

<p>Subtle diplomacy: there are more effective ways to negotiate peace than by writing poems</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Rhyme or reason

<p>New world order: There was definitely an ocean there the last time I looked</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Continental drift

<p>Less is more: we must not allow the tenets of good writing to be consumed by our desire to engage the reader </p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: When dulce ate decorum

<p>High jinx: There is only so much revelry our news pages can sustain</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Gale warning

<p>Friend or foe? A child regards her grandmother-turned-wolf with a degree of scepticism </p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: A time to mend

<p>Profits on the line: It is reassuring to know that M&S and its pants are managing to keep up</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Brief encounter

<p>Never say never: Some pugilistic proscriptivists prepare for the long haul</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Out for the count

<p>Mixing one’s metaphors is like mixing anything else: risky, but nonetheless enjoyable</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Toil and trouble

<p>Some prehistoric creatures delight in their uncharacterised status, apparently oblivious to the presence of the artist, whose notebook was discovered nearby, though he was not </p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Editor vs prey

<p>Fomentation process: some excitable young fruit throw themselves into the melee </p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Grapes of wrath

<p>Take me to your editorial: an automaton surveys with satisfaction a landscape free of grammatical beauty</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Why, robot?

<p>Welcome to the new first city of France, Maryvonne Caillibotte</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Capital gains

<p>No one wants to buy onions when a dog, or indeed a pig, has been at them </p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Apropostrophe

Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Apropostrophe

<p>No one wants to buy onions when a dog, or indeed a pig, has been at them </p>
<p>The troubles of passengers stuck at Dubai international airport (file image) cannot be overstated </p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Friendly fire

<p>Witchcraft is not recommended as a method to determine the right word to use in copy. That is what the style guide is for </p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: The whiching hour

<p>A so-called grisly bear (top left) does its best to look fearsome </p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Grey matter

<p>Prog shock: a visitor to a future world marvels at the improvement in charging facilities </p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Nowhere fast

<p>Prog shock: a visitor to a future world marvels at the improvement in charging facilities </p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Nowhere fast

<p>Multiple births are not altogether uncommon, but the term does not generally refer to being born more than once</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Special delivery

<p>Dr Philippe Pinel oversees the removal of chains from a patient – let’s call her Melody – at the Paris asylum for women who do not care for grammatical prescriptiveness </p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Due diligence

<p>It is never in our interest to sensationalise the news</p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Read all about it

<p>Here comes the science bit: you can’t expect journalists to know about these things </p>
Errors & Omissions

Mea Culpa: Re diffusion

<p>Some phrasal verbs and assorted syntactic nuisances torment a team of sub-editors </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: A singular preposition

<p>A group of government ministers consult a visionary prior to committing to anything on Radio 4 </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Future proofing

<p>‘A weed is just a plant in the wrong place.’ Well, quite. Now off you go </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Gardening leave

<p>An editor encounters an unexpected etymology </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Rifling about

<p>A group of government ministers consult a visionary prior to committing to anything on Radio 4 </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Future proofing

<p>‘A weed is just a plant in the wrong place.’ Well, quite. Now off you go </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Gardening leave

<p>An editor encounters an unexpected etymology </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Rifling about

<p>‘She had the look of a woman whose punctuational needs had been satisfied’ </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Easy reading

Voices

Mea Culpa: Easy reading

<p>‘She had the look of a woman whose punctuational needs had been satisfied’ </p>
<p>Some Belgian aeronauts being subjected to assistance by British sailors in about 1880 </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: A subject lesson

<p>Suddenly they were everywhere </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Keeping the peace

<p>A chair of unknown gender ponders its existence </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Chair and chair alike

<p>A Southwest 737 flying in what looks to me like a straight line </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Round we go again

<p>A Southwest 737 flying in what looks to me like a straight line </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Round we go again

<p>A restorative Christmas to one and all </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Ripping yarns

<p>That’s not the Jules Rimet trophy either </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Labouring the point

<p>A disappointed prime-ministerial candidate is rowed gently back to shore</p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Winds of change

<p>A harmless creature like the comma should be handled with care, respect, and a little trepidation </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Serial killers

<p>A Roman bravely vanquishes a modern plural, as a sub from the future looks on </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Umming and ahhing

<p>High and dry: another phrase that doesn’t require hyphens </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Joined-up thinking

<p>‘Majuscule’ and ‘minuscule’ are the names for the upper- and lower-case letters used in printing </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Little letters

<p>The Happy Mondays, blithely indifferent to the principles of grammar </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Rack and ruin

<p>When our own headlines are in accidental doublespeak, we’re in trouble </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Clause and effect

<p>‘Shall I compare thee with a summer’s day?’ would imply a rather different sentiment </p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Minding our Ps and Qs

<p>The Latin word ‘prodigium’ – something extraordinary, once interpreted as a sign from the gods – is the origin of the word ‘prodigy’</p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Signs and wonders

Voices

Mea Culpa: Signs and wonders

<p>The Latin word ‘prodigium’ – something extraordinary, once interpreted as a sign from the gods – is the origin of the word ‘prodigy’</p>
<p>An underwater creature, happiest under water</p>
Voices

Mea Culpa: Advocating the proper use of verbs

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