The Independent - Corrections RSS Feed

Errors & Omissions: Shocking revelation... other rival newspapers really do exist

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 GMT

Remember the email from the late Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe complaining about a lack of helicopters in Afghanistan? Well, I'm going to tell you a secret. The existence of the email was first disclosed in the Daily Mail.

Errors & Omissions: A stone's throw from yet another tiresome cliché

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:01 GMT

An arresting quotation drew the reader in to a report on Monday about a secondary school with its own small zoo. "'You want the head's study?' the receptionist asked. 'It's past the ducks and the alpaca and then it's on the left.'"

Jasper Gerard

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 23:00:49 GMT

In the item "Jasper started it, honest" (18 October) about the Daily Telegraph's recent feature on Tunbridge Wells it was wrongly suggested that Jasper Gerard had asked two boys of seventeen to pose for a fake picture showing them drunk, and that the paper had published it without their permission.

Errors & Omissions: Some vehicles should never have been allowed on the road

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

We reported on Wednesday the news that plans to make a film about the relationship between Edwina Mountbatten and Jawaharlal Nehru had been put on hold. In referring to Working Title, the production company behind the project, we said that "its biggest-grossing films include the romantic comedies and Hugh Grant vehicles Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral".

Errors & Omissions: Stick to English if you want to avoid the trap of foreign phrases

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

This newspaper has a bad habit of making a hash of foreign languages. We have been at it again.

Errors & Omissions: Some see it as a joke – others see a blasphemous headline

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

This headline appeared above a football match report on Monday: "Galacticos fall at the feet of Jesus." (Readers who do not follow football need to know that the Galacticos are the Real Madrid side; they had lost to Seville, one of whose goals was scored by a player called Jesus Navas.)

UN Relief and Works Agency, Gaza

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:01:52 GMT

The headline "Teach Gaza children about Holocaust, UN tells Hamas" in The Independent of 5 October did not reflect the interview with John Ging, Gaza Operations Director of UNRWA, reported below it. This referred only to the curriculum in UNRWA schools, and we regret any implication in the headline that Mr Ging was seeking to dictate the curriculum in any other schools in Gaza.

Errors & Omissions: Meanings come and go, but some things never change

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:00:01 GMT

A blurb published in yesterday's Arts and Books section displayed a rare example of a common type of confusion: "After a four-year break from film, the actress who emanates a misfit's primal energy is back."

Neil Rawles / Luke Campbell

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:00:42 GMT

In our article 'Last night's television' (22 September 2009) we credited Neil Rawles as director and producer of the Channel 4 documentary Daredevils: The Ice Man. In fact it was Luke Campbell.

JP Morgan

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:00:55 GMT

In our article, 'GMAC – Woolies' lender – puts UK book up for sale' (13 September 2009) we referred to an article published by the ICAEW about JP Morgan exiting the Asset Backed Loan market as a syndicator of loans. JP Morgan has asked us to point out that it is still participating in the ABL market and has not exited from the sector.'

Errors & Omissions: London has its place – and it's not at the centre of the universe

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

That the following was written by one of our political correspondents may perhaps be some mitigation. They spend their working lives inside the "Westminster village", where even the outer suburbs of London must come to seem like the distant steppes of central Asia.

Alexander Hilton

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:00:17 GMT

The headline on a story (29 August) about a spoof website set up by Mr Hilton, the prospective Labour candidate for Chelsea and Fulham, incorrectly stated that Mr Hilton had admitted that the spoof was intended to smear the Tories. In fact Mr Hilton did not admit any intention to smear the Tories nor, he tells us, did he ever have that aim.

Rt Hon David Blunkett MP

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:00:25 GMT

In the paper of 18 September we wrongly said David Blunkett had resigned from the Cabinet after trying to fast-track the visa application of his wife's nanny. The nanny in question in fact worked for his lover and although Sir Alan Budd's inquiry into the matter identified that the visa had been fast-tracked, it concluded "I have not been able to determine whether Mr Blunkett gave any instructions in relation to the case and if so what they were".

Errors & Omissions: It's not just vocabulary that gets lost across the Atlantic

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

Aged pedants who moan about "Americanisms" usually mean items of vocabulary, such as "sidewalk" and "apartment", failing to remember how much duller the English language would be, especially its political vocabulary, without such American expressions as "bandwagon", "filibuster" and "pork barrel". Less often noted are the differences of syntax.

Errors & Omissions: Xxxxxx marks the spot where the headline should have been

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

I think the little heading was intended to say something like "Presidential popularity". It headed a panel that formed part of a foreign news spread published on Thursday, about President Obama's healthcare reforms. Unfortunately it came out in later editions as "Xxxxxx".

Errors & Omissions: Love at first sight? It depends on what you're trying to say

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 23:00:01 GMT

It was like being forced, at school, to read T S Eliot's Four Quartets . The language is apparently English, but the words convey no meaning. This sensation of baffled helplessness was induced by the following passage, from an interview with the actress Zooey Deschanel, published on Tuesday.

Errors & Omissions: Disgusted of Downing Street makes a schoolboy error

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

You almost had to feel sorry for Gordon Brown this week, frozen into silence by the question whether he approved of the decision to release the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

Errors & Omissions: Oscar Wilde died too young to be an eminent Edwardian

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

"In May 1897," said a column published last Saturday, "Oscar Wilde composed a letter to the editor of the Daily Chronicle on the subject of child prisoners ... . If it was an absurdity to enlightened Edwardians, it is undeniably tragic now."

Correction: Art Capital Group

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

In our article, "Annie get your lawyer: Leibovitz sued over $24m loan" (1 August 2009) we quoted an anonymous source who said that Art Capital Group were "pretty scary guys, they are predatory lenders". The article also included a statement from Annie Leibovitz's publicist that the lawsuit brought by Art Capital Group is part of its continued harassment and attention-getting efforts. We accept that the allegations are false and apologise to Art Capital Group.

Art Capital Group

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 22:00:37 GMT

In our article, “Annie get your lawyer: Leibovitz sued over $24m loan” (1 August 2009) we quoted an anonymous source who said that Art Capital Group were ‘pretty scary guys, they are predatory lenders’. The article also included a statement from Annie Leibovitz’s publicist that the lawsuit brought by Art Capital Group is part of its continued harassment and attention-getting efforts. We accept that the allegations are false and apologise to Art Capital Group.'

Errors & Omissions: The spirit of PC Plod finds its way into a news report

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

This sentence comes from Thursday's news story about the great Mayfair jewel robbery. It goes badly wrong halfway through: "It is believed that police in the current investigation have not ruled out the possibility that the same gang has struck again, but think it is unlikely due to the fact that the suspected culprits in the latest raid had London accents."

Maitalal Gurung

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The picture which illustrated our article, "Gurkha's 40-year battle to clear name goes to the High Court" ( 18 July 2009) about Maitalal Gurung, was not a picture of Maitalal Gurung, as captioned, but of Lalit Bahandur Gurung. We apologise for the mix-up.

Errors & Omissions: Once you start throwing around capitals, you just can't stop

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:00:01 GMT

The annoying habit of putting a capital T on the word "the" reached a new level of absurdity in a news story, published on Thursday, about the death of Harry Patch, the last surviving British veteran of the First World War. "Radiohead's frontman Thom Yorke yesterday announced the band was releasing a tribute song to the man dubbed The Last Tommy."

Dominic Lawson

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 23:00:29 GMT

In last week’s Feral Beast, in the context of an item about a British presenter on Iran’s Press TV, Yvonne Ridley, we referred to a remark by her which implied that Dominic Lawson had been an MI6 agent. Mr Lawson, now a columnist on our sister paper, the Independent, has pointed out that this false allegation, originally made in 1999 by someone else, was denied not only by him but also by the then Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook. Apologies to Dominic.

Errors & Omissions: It takes a poet to uncover the true meaning of a word

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:00:01 GMT

There is a wonderful poem by Robert Graves called "The Naked and the Nude", in which he argues that these two terms are very far from synonymous, whatever the lexicographers might say. For Graves, put simply, nakedness implies a degree of innocence that is not present in nudity. Both words have value judgements attached to them.