Mea Culpa: Finding Jane Austen’s other novel, Sense and Responsibility

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

Kate Winslet and Greg Wise in ‘Sense and Sensibility’ (Rex)

Mary Dejevsky, one of our brilliant columnists, seemed to come over a bit Jane Austen in her article about the flaws of the NHS. “Insurance-based systems can be more responsible to new demands or threats,” she wrote. I thought that perhaps this was a bit like Marianne in Sense and Sensibility saying: “I am not sensible of having done anything wrong.” 

But no, I think it was just a typing error, and Mary meant “responsive”. Shame, really. 

Fairest of them all: That article was “puffed”, as we say, on the front page, in one of those short headlines under a photo of the author across the top, known as the skyline. The “puff” said: “Mary Dejevsky: Is free healthcare really more fair?” To which the answer is, naturally: “No, it’s ‘fairer’.”