Bad language
Sir: Your timely comments ('Notebook', 21 February) on the decline in the standard of English in use in broadcasting apply equally to journalism.
For example, was it a printer's devil or his own ignorance that made Benny Green write of a toy called Whistler 'careening' across the Victorian parlour floor (14 February)? Since 'careen' has a perfectly good use already, viz. 'to turn a ship over on one side', this is wasteful in the same way as the American—and, increasingly, British—misuse of 'hopefully' and 'disinterested'. It is to be hoped that contributors to The Spectator will not tamely submit to and help to propagate every lazy or ignorant neologism that becomes current.
Marc Attwood-Wood 44 MUnster (Westfalen) Liihnsteige 8-9, West Germany
Previous page
