Mea Culpa: Donald Trump, wreaker of havoc

Questions of language and style in last week’s Independent, reviewed by John Rentoul

Former US president Donald Trump arrives at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Georgia (Getty)

In a comment article on Donald Trump’s court appearance on Friday, we said that the former president would not be entering into any plea bargaining negotiations with the justice department. He thought, we speculated, that “any deal would wreak of weakness”. Thanks to John Schluter for pointing out that we meant “reek”, as in “smell strongly”.

Our author might have been subliminally influenced by the “w” and “ea” of “weakness”, or by the all-too-common mental image of Trump “wreaking havoc”. “Wreak” is a good old-fashioned Old English word that used to mean “avenge”, but now mainly means “inflict damage”. It is a rather Trumpian word, but it is not the right one here.

Opposites: I once compiled a Top 10 words with opposite meanings. One of them was “sanction”, which can mean “approve” or “punish”. This confused Teri Walsh on Friday, when we reported that Luis Rubiales, the head of the Spanish football association, was in trouble after “three formal complaints over whether his behaviour constituted an infraction of Spain’s sports law, which sanctions sexist acts”.