Mea Culpa: The campaign against ‘ongoing’ is ongoing

Questions of style and usage in this week’s Independent

A ‘real-world’ polar bear, rather than an armoured one, on thin ice (Getty/Vetta)

My campaign against the word “ongoing” is ongoing. We used it 31 times this week, and we needn’t have used it once. In most cases it could simply have been deleted, as the context made it clear that what had been happening was still happening. For example, in a report of Labour’s problems we said: “The party has been embroiled in an ongoing furore since the leader gave his backing to an antisemitic London mural.”

The other instances were quotations from people with no ear for the language, which obviously we should not edit, although we could consider not using them.

Or they were constructions such as this: we reported that talks about Rafa Benitez’s contract at Newcastle United “are still ongoing”. This is just a pseudo-posh way of saying they “are still going on”. If that English is too plain, I think “are continuing” is preferable. And there is definitely no need for the “still”.

Leave and Remain: A while ago I compiled a Top 10 Words With Opposite Meanings, such as sanction, which can mean to approve something or to impose a punishment to express disapproval. This week I found another. On a report of BT’s announcement of 13,000 job cuts over three years, the sub-headline read: “Plans in motion for BT to leave its headquarters in central London.”

As Steve Hill asked in the comments, is it abandoning London, or leaving the HQ where it is, in London? It was clear enough from the main headline that the company was trying to cut costs, implying it would be moving away from the city with the fourth highest rents in the world. But we should always be on the lookout for ambiguity, especially in headlines.

Unreal science: In an article about the record low Arctic ice levels, we cited a report from the University of Alaska Fairbanks that has “outlined the real-world effects of these stunning environmental changes on the many communities that inhabit the Bering Sea region”.

We did not need the qualifier, “real-world”. Our readers may be interested in the imaginary effects of global warming in films such as The Day After Tomorrow, but they would not expect fiction from the the International Arctic Research Centre at a US university.