"It is not for us to say..."

[bronze_ribbons]

Feeling distinctly grotty instead of the slightly unwell that's plagued me the past week-and-a-bit, so it's tea and Robitussin and naps this weekend. Overall, though, it was a pretty good week -- sold a poem, attended a fun cocktail party (with really good crabcakes -- almost no breading and a perfect mustard sauce -- and good conversation, too), and finished drafting a six-page outline. The betas were very kind to the unholy holiday fic, so that's all sorted and submitted, which frees me to focus on revising poems as soon as I finish the Advent sermon...

There's also the BBC Alphabetical Checklist, a repository of snark, despair, and pragmatism that sent me into stitches (as well as being quite informative about distinctions such as the proper prepositions for Anglican bodies (the Church OF England, the Church OF Ireland, the Episcopal Church IN Scotland, the Church IN Wales)). [ETA from an anonymous commenter: "Unfortunately the BBC is mistaken, which is unusual. There is no 'Episcopal Church in Scotland', though there used to be. It is now called the Scottish Episcopal Church."]

Some of the highlights:

Anticipate
means to act in expectation of something; to forestall. To use it as a synonym for expect is to sacrifice its useful particularity. It may be a losing battle, but we should persevere.

Apostrophe
is going the way of the skylark, but should still be treasured. It has disappeared from Regents Park, Kings Road, Barclays, but should be protected in Lord's (the cricket ground). It is not needed in MPs, QCs; and is unwanted in the possessive "its". But it is essential in place of the missing letter in "it's". Thus: "It's a damn shame that its (the skylark's) future is so uncertain".

Assassinate
only political and religious leaders can be assassinated. Lesser mortals are murdered.

Collective nouns
can be singular or plural. The only rule is: you must be consistent. "Marks and Spencer is selling a new biscuit. They say it's the best ever made" is the type of rubbish we broadcast far too often.

Electrocution
invariably causes death.

Enormity
strictly means extreme wickedness, not great size. But recent dictionary definitions include the latter. Our best policy is to avoid the word, lest we either sound pedantic or offend pedants.

Historic
to be used with extreme care. It means notable in history, and journalists are in a very bad position to make that judgement of an event in progress. Also, when something genuinely historic does happen - Nelson Mandela leaving prison - the word gets done to death.

Ironically
If we leave out Socratic methods of discussion, irony can be defined as expressing a view by saying the opposite - eg criticising by seeming to praise. We, or our correspondents, tend to use it to mean "oddly" or "coincidentally" or sometimes "paradoxically". The safest course is to avoid the word; a more original course would be to use the adverb which describes what you actually mean.

Literally
An excitable programme presenter once prefaced an interview with the words: "Mrs ...... is a woman who has literally been to hell and back". A world exclusive, given astonishingly little prominence.

Pre-planned
ridiculous tautology.

Ships
the campaign to protect the female virtue of vessels has been lost. They can be feminine or neuter.