We reported on Wednesday the discovery of chemicals associated with living organisms on a planet 120 light years away: “Scientists have detected an encouraging potential sign of life on a planet in a different solar system in what they believe is the ‘strongest indicator’ that life exists beyond Earth.”
What is the word “encouraging” doing there? We have no idea whether life elsewhere in our galaxy would be good or bad for us. The finding was interesting enough in itself, without us trying to dictate to the reader whether they should be pleased or – if they have read any science fiction at all – alarmed.
Eyes in the side of his head: A photo caption at the weekend said: “A person watches the sunrise on the Uyuni salt flat in Bolivia.” John Harrison wrote to say that “he must have eyes in his right ear since the picture clearly shows he is not facing the sun”.
High water mark: After Liam James, my colleague, commented in last week’s Mea Culpa column that the word “mark” had been used where it shouldn’t have been, we did it again in “Home news in brief”, when we reported: “More than 700 migrants crossed the English Channel on Tuesday to mark the highest number of arrivals on a single day so far this year.” Thanks to Henry Peacock for pointing out that “to mark” made no sense, and that we meant something like “which is”.
Standing room only: Richard Thomas, another reader, noticed that we slipped into the wrong register in a report on Monday of Steve Bray’s victory in court against police efforts to stop him playing loud music outside parliament: “Police had approached Mr Bray when he was stood on a traffic island at around 11.20am.” This is conversational English as she is spoke increasingly by young people, but we should prefer the more formal “was standing” to give our reporting more authority.
Stuck in the middle: My war against “amid” is going badly. In the past seven days, we have had “Chancellor Rachel Reeves is due to hold talks with the White House next week amid efforts to strike a trade deal”; a headline, “Shareholders revolt against BP chair amid climate clash”; and “reports of US dissidents being detained and arrested continue to flood in amid the continued rise of far-right politicians across Europe”.
The first two should have been easy to deal with: “as part of” and “in” would have made sense; the third needed more work, as we were trying to link two different but related things, without trying to explain the connection.
Praisiness: Finally, I rejected a complaint from a reader who objected to this passage in a report on Thursday of a boxing match: “As Clarke’s eyes glazed over, and the heavyweight’s crushed cheekbone collapsed into itself, a stark reality was rendered: this sport hurts, it is dangerous, and it is unforgiving. And if you were one of those to have felt that unnerving quease in the aftermath of Clarke’s first-round defeat by Wardley, imagine – if you can – how Clarke’s family felt.”
Our correspondent thought that we meant “queasiness”, but I like it as it is, and think that Alex Pattle should be congratulated on an imaginative play on words. “Quease” ought to be a word, although “queasy” probably comes from Old Norse kveisa, so the “y” at the end may be an alteration of the “a” rather than a regular adjectival ending. And, as our correspondent admitted, “I know what he means.”
For me, it sums up rather well how I feel about people hitting each other on the head for sport.
