Mea Culpa: State and estimate – under, over and out

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

Tom Cruise, swaying on the cinematic landscape (Paramount/Shutterstock)

We came a cropper on the “cannot be understated” trap again this week, in the introduction to an article about Tom Cruise: “Whatever you think of the Mission: Impossible daredevil’s acting range, his sway on the cinematic landscape can’t be understated.” We meant “can’t be overstated”. We get this wrong so often that all writers should be trained to avoid the formula like the plague. “Impossible to underestimate” and all similar phrases should go straight in the bin. Do not waste time trying to work out whether it is “under” or “over”: just rewrite.

Dangling Boris: We started a sentence in a news report with this: “Before announcing his resignation last week, ...”. Obviously we were talking about the prime minister, because he had featured a couple of paragraphs before, but the form of words still required us to spell it out, as the reader expects “he” or “Mr Johnson” to come next. Instead, we got “... some MPs had been awaiting the outcome of the committee’s probe, which has the power to recommend sanctions, before moving against the prime minister”. Easily fixed by changing the first part to “Before he announced his resignation last week, ...”. Also I think we prefer “inquiry” to “probe”, which sounds a bit medical.

Only one Mo Farion: In an analysis of whether Sir Mo Farah would have been put on a plane to Rwanda if he had been trafficked into the UK today, we concluded that this was a Question To Which The Answer Is No. We said: “The main criteria is ‘inadmissibility’ for consideration by Britain’s asylum system, but he did not apply for asylum.” Thanks to Richard Thomas for pointing out that the singular of criteria is criterion. It is Greek, and we still use the Greek endings. No doubt this will change eventually as language evolves, just as our style is referendums rather than the Latin plural referenda, but we haven’t reached that point yet.