Mea Culpa: Gale warning

We published a report about a gathering that took place in the US in honour of someone or other’s return to office. It seems it was a spirited affair – the event, that is, though the report itself was not, shall we say, altogether ruly. It began with the sentence: “Nigel Farage was proclaimed as ‘the next prime minister of Great Britain’ at a huge party overlooking the White House to celebrate the upcoming inauguration of his friend and ally Donald Trump.”

“Proclaim” is one of those verbs that is often followed mistakenly by an “as” – a small and rather put-upon word that people tend to insert for insurance purposes, to ungrammatical effect. We do not proclaim someone as something: we simply proclaim them it, just as we declare, appoint, or label someone something. No “as” is required. (In fact, so prevalent are these spare ases that we could probably get some kind of returns discount with our supplier if we gathered them all up and put them in a paper bag.)

We continued our assault on unsuspecting verbs when we wrote: “Former Mississippi governor Phil Bryant regaled how he had first introduced Mr Trump and Mr Farage when he persuaded ‘Mr Brexit’ to go on stage at a rally in August 2016.” The act of regaling is always transitive (meaning, in essence, that it passes from one thing to another), so it has to be followed by an object. It also generally requires a “with” to come after that. For example: “She regaled her audience with tales of her seven turbulent marriages” [Enough about those – Ed].

There is another, now obsolete meaning of “regale” – this time intransitive – which is “revel”, though you probably have to do that in something, whether it’s telling an anecdote, or eating a pudding, or some other pleasurable activity. No matter: I think what we meant was “recounted [the story of]”, so the sentence was changed to say that. Interestingly, the word is unrelated to “regal”: it comes from the French régaler, from Old French gale, meaning “merriment”. The modern word “gale”, however, does not, though I can quite see how it might, the wind always seeming to delight in blowing us half to bits. Words are funny things.

See you, see me: We committed a cardinal error in an editorial last week, beginning a paragraph with an adverbial phrase that bore no relation to what immediately followed. Attempting to convey Britain’s unease as it prepared for the arrival of the new US president, we said: “Viewed from London, Sir Keir Starmer’s government is braced for the kind of embarrassments suffered by Theresa May ...”. Our government was not the thing being viewed: in fact, it was doing the viewing. The start of the sentence was changed to “In London ...”, which painted a clearer picture.

Shelf control: We snookered ourselves a little in an opinion piece that celebrated the joys of an annual virtual sojourn at the Crucible Theatre. “Discounting the welcome cheers that bookend the start and finish of a match, tournament snooker at this level is largely characterised by a reverential hush ...” we wrote. The “bookending” metaphor is a pleasant one, but when we use a term figuratively we have to be confident enough not to overexplain. Bookends by their nature go at the beginning and end of something, so we did not need to say that part as well.

Tautology is not just awkward: it can complicate things by suggesting a need to double up on whatever it is we’re talking about, in this instance the number of bookends (two for the start and two for the finish). With outgoings like that, it’s no wonder newspapers struggle to make ends meet.

Double Dutchess: There was a similar mistake in the headline of a report about Sarah Ferguson, which read: “Double diagnoses of cancer put Duchess in ‘dark places’.” It is the case that she was diagnosed twice with cancer, but that amounts to a double diagnosis, not a double diagnoses (which is already plural). It sounds like she had enough to deal with without our compounding the issue.

Mad dogs and Englishmen: Roger Thetford wrote to complain about our recent use of the word “distemper” in relation to the stock markets. An interesting point, and we are always glad to look into these things, though I’m inclined to rule in our favour this time. Distemper is a disease, particularly of dogs, and it is also a kind of paint, but it does have another meaning according to Merriam-Webster, which is “bad humor or temper”.

You will note the spelling of “humour” there: Merriam-Webster is an American dictionary, and I believe that definition of “distemper” is more common in US English (some British dictionaries list it as archaic or obsolete). It can also be used as a verb, meaning derange or unsettle, which it seems to have done on this occasion. But in my view, as long as it’s clear what we mean, it’s not worth getting worked up about.

Derring don’t: We offered a questionable piece of travel advice in a headline last week that read “World’s most dangerous countries to avoid in 2025.” At first glance it appeared harmless enough, but it did not take long to realise that it said the opposite of what it should: we had provided a list of places that are considered unsafe for travellers, but the headline suggested it would be perilous to stay away from the countries in question. It was quickly amended – hopefully before any of our readers had decided to set off to any of these high-risk locations on our say-so.

I think that’s enough excitement for one week. Perhaps by next time it will all have blown over.