Mea Culpa: A bit of unnecessary play-acting

John Rentoul on questions of style and usage in last week’s Independent

Did James Murdoch show some ankle in leaving the family business?

We used a vogue word in an editorial about the EU trade talks, saying: “Apart from pride and a performative desire to be seen to act ‘tough’ there isn’t much to be said for the UK’s present negotiating tactics.” I think people have recently started to use “performative” to suggest someone is play-acting, in which case that is already covered by the word “act”.

Inkling about ankling: We further broadened our readers’ vocabulary last weekend, publishing an interview with James Murdoch by Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, which referred to his “ankling the family business he once hoped to lead”. Thanks to Philip Nalpanis for drawing this to my attention, and for sending me to the online Urban Dictionary for a translation: “A Hollywood biz term (used often in Variety), meaning to walk out of, or to quit, a job.”

The Urban Dictionary entry goes on, “Because if you just said ‘quit’, more people would actually understand what you’re talking about,” which seems a fair comment to me. Obviously, Dowd is a big-name writer and we wouldn’t change her copy, but she ought to know better that there is a line to be drawn between educating the reader and putting them off.