Mea Culpa: the uses and abuses of pop music’s past

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

One of the Fab Four is left wondering why he didn’t get the ‘moustaches are in this year’ memo (Getty)

Apparently he is fashionable again, and we commented: “Paul McCartney didn’t used to be cool.” It is a curious grammatical construction, when you think about it, but I think Paul Edwards is right to say that it should be “didn’t use to be cool”. It is complicated by not being able to hear the difference in speech: you would say that McCartney “used to be cool” or that he “used not to be cool”, but a “did” or “didn’t” changes it, as in: “Did you use to listen to the Beatles?”

Spotted on the hard shoulder: In an article about the dangers of smart motorways we had the phrase “twice as likely than”. We meant “twice as likely as”. Thanks to Richard Thomas, who is as sharp-eyed than an eagle, for pointing this out.

Degrees of bad: In an editorial on the vexed implications of Brexit for Northern Ireland, we said: “A border down the Irish Sea remains the least worst solution.” As Roger Thetford reminded us, “least worst” is a common enough phrase, probably because of the assonance, but it makes no sense. We meant “least bad”.