Errors & Omissions: Every reader of this newspaper is a singular individual

How to address the reader, and other style glitches from this week's Independent

William Gladstone's last audience with Queen Victoria

A Voices piece on Monday began: “Sorry if this column makes some of you miserable or cross.” Some of whom? Why, “the readers” of course, that community of people whom writers easily imagine themselves to be addressing. But just as Queen Victoria reputedly complained of Gladstone addressing her as if she were a public meeting, I confess that I, as a reader, object to writers addressing me as if the mere reading of an article has enrolled me in a club, “some” of whom may do this or that. The act of reading is solitary. There is just you and the newspaper. And it would be an odd club whose members had never met one another.

I hasten to assure you, dear reader, that in this column you will remain singular, as you deserve.

µ A news story on Wednesday reported: “Mr Corbyn has been urged by senior advisers to get a firmer grip on his front bench following public splits over bombing Isis in Syria and renewing the Trident nuclear deterrent.”

The orthodoxy in Whitehall and Westminster is that while less enlightened nations have nuclear weapons, which are devices for incinerating thousands of people, Britain has a nuclear deterrent, which is of course nothing like that.

A newspaper should not allow such dishonest language to infiltrate its news pages, and should call Britain’s nuclear weapon a nuclear weapon.

µ A feature article on Wednesday quoted and analysed Donald Trump’s first campaign TV commercial: “‘Donald Trump calls it radical Islamic terrorism. That’s why he’s calling for a temporary shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until we can figure out what’s going on.’ Righto.”

No, that breezy exclamation of agreement (here employed ironically) is two words, spelt “Right ho”. I cite as authority the title of a 1934 novel by that great master of English prose, PG Wodehouse: Right Ho, Jeeves.

µ In the journalese world everybody must have a label, as simple and vivid as possible. This is from a news story published on Thursday: “Political correctness must not sanitise comedy and inhibit controversial material, Tracey Ullman has warned ahead of the veteran performer’s return to the BBC.” So, Tracey Ullman is “the veteran performer”. Not untrue (though perhaps a little unkind at the age of 56), but the placing of the label is odd, just after a quotation of her opinions. It makes it sound as if she referred to herself as the veteran performer.

µ A Voices piece on Monday referred to “Greggs, McDonald’s, Wrigley, Costa and KFC who, let’s face it, should know a thing or two about litter and the despoilation of the nation’s high streets”. There are two things wrong with “despoilation”. First, it is misspelt; the verb is “despoil”, but the noun is “despoliation”. Second, it is misapplied; it means spoiling in the sense of robbery or plunder.