- Corrections RSS Feed

Andy Coulson

Sat, 19 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Our front-page story last week asserted that Andy Coulson refused to sign a confidentiality clause when he became director of communications for the Conservative Party.

Errors & Omissions: How do you like your swear words – with or without asterisks?

Fri, 18 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

How do you feel about bad language and asterisks? In its early years this newspaper took a very robust, even puritanical, attitude. It believed that its readers were the kind of people who didn't have net curtains in their windows and wanted the unvarnished truth.

Errors & Omissions: It seems that some functionless words were born only to make trouble

Fri, 11 May 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Here is a common homophone error with very odd origins. An analysis piece published on Tuesday said: "If Mr Putin really does believe that the opposition to him is not borne of a disgruntled middle class...".

Errors & Omissions: Insure yourself against the strange use of the term 'third party'

Fri, 04 May 2012 19:00:01 GMT

This is not exactly an error, just a very odd usage that seems to have become universal. Throughout the Gareth Williams inquest, everybody, including the coroner, has been referring to the possibility that the MI6 man was killed and zipped up into a holdall by a "third party".

Police survey

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 23:00:08 GMT

In an article of 18 March we referred to a health and fitness survey conducted by the Met police and said that it found 75 per cent of the force to be overweight. In fact, it found that of those who took part (around a fifth of all officers and staff) 75 per cent of the males surveyed were overweight.

Errors & Omissions: Different from and different to - they might just be the same as...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:00:01 GMT

The admission last week that this column sees nothing very much wrong with "different to" has shocked the pedant community.

Errors & Omissions: In search of the final word on how to use prepositions properly

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Prepositions can provoke violent loyalty and outrage. John Rentoul has been taken to task by another colleague in the office for having written in this space last week that it "does not matter much" whether you write "different from" or "different to". There are those who think "different to" is awful.

Errors & Omissions: Even the disinterested can be distracted now and again

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 23:00:01 GMT

In our excellent series about the failings of NHS nursing this week, we used "disinterested" to mean "uninterested", twice. It hardly matters, because no confusion of meaning is likely, but as long as there are enough people who care, we should try not to distract them unnecessarily. "Disinterested" means impartial, as in "not having an interest" in the outcome, whereas "uninterested" means lacking in curiosity. Thanks to Derek Watts, a reader from Lewes, for demonstrating that I am not alone in being distracted.

Errors & Omissions: When a factually correct headline masks a wildly sexist premise

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 23:00:01 GMT

"The granny with Sir Humphrey in her crosshairs" was the headline on the Monday Interview, the subject of which was Margaret Hodge MP, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, who is gunning for Whitehall mandarins.

Nature Studies column

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 23:00:01 GMT

The Nature Studies column by Michael McCarthy published yesterday, under the headline, "Bees, pesticides and Defra's weasel words", said that the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had placed a statement on its website on Monday denying the truth of a story published in The Independent last week, about the Defra Chief Scientist, Sir Robert Watson, asking for a review of the safety of neonicotinoid pesticides.

Errors & Omissions: Readers want to both gawp at pictures and learn a few facts

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Many years ago, The Times had a reputation for publishing, in a spirit of superb hauteur, captions which did not condescend to tell you anything much about the picture. Maybe it was assumed that people who wanted to gawp at pictures rather than read text were not clever enough to want facts.

Julian Assange

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 23:00:01 GMT

Frank Warren

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:00:59 GMT

A reference was made in a sports article on 14 March that may have given the impression that Frank Warren played a part in instigating the recent press room fight between Mr Haye and Mr Chisora.

Errors & Omissions: Caught short by a literal translation that wasn't quite le mot juste

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:00:01 GMT

On Thursday, a news report datelined from Toulouse reported: "Authorities insisted no attempts had yet been made to seize Mohamed Merah, 23, believed to be the 'scooter assassin' who murdered seven people in eight days."

Errors & Omissions: The trouble with the adverb formerly known as formally

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:00:01 GMT

This is from a news page last Saturday: "Partly this is the nature of coalition government, which means that everything has to be formerly signed off by both parties." That should be "formally".

Corrections & clarifications: Jeremy Bowen

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:00:01 GMT

In an article earlier this week on the Counter-Terrorism and Specialist Security Awards due to be held next month, said by critics to be an "arms dealers' dinner", we wrongly stated that BBC journalist Jeremy Bowen had in the past agreed to be the MC at this event.

Errors & Omissions: If you go around begging, expect questions to be raised

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Tuesday's Trending page reported that Scarlett Johansson is to act the part of Janet Leigh, star of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho – "which beggars the question: is there a more intimidating role to take on than that of another celebrated actor?".

Correction

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:07:00 GMT

In an article on Tuesday we inadvertently implied that Denis Norden was no longer with us. We are happy to say that our report was much exaggerated and that Mr Norden is very much still alive.

Correction

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:00:34 GMT

Errors & Omissions: When your boiler breaks down, let a pagoda come to your rescue

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:00:01 GMT

The struggle to find illustrations for business page articles is as old as journalism. No pictures are available of the things we write about on business pages, such as the gross domestic product or quantitative easing. So it was on a personal finance page last Saturday. The headline said: "Nobody accepts responsibility for my mother's faulty boiler." Next door was a picture captioned: "Kew Gardens pagoda: Many households are vulnerable to cold winters."

MATCH Hospitality AG ("MATCH"), Jaime and Enrique Byrom

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

The article "Blatter embroiled in new controversy – this time over tickets" on 20 November 2011 stated that, despite MATCH's performance in the 2010 Fifa World Cup, it did not have to tender for the hospitality rights it was granted by Fifa for the 2014 Fifa World Cup. In fact, MATCH was awarded hospitality rights for the 2014 Fifa World Cup after a formal bid process in 2007.

Richard Thomas

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:00:09 GMT

Our report of the Leveson Inquiry on 6 December 2011 said that former Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, had told MPs in 2007 that lawyers had advised him that journalists should not be prosecuted in connection with the Operation Motorman investigation, and contrasted that to the legal advice he had received in 2003 to the effect that there was “little doubt” that journalists had committed offences. We were wrong to suggest that in any way Mr Thomas had misled MPs. In fact Mr Thomas was telling MPs about subsequent legal advice obtained in 2005 after Steve Whittamore and others had been sentenced to conditional discharges, when he was advised that further prosecutions should not go ahead. We accept that our report was misleading and we apologise to Mr Thomas.

Errors & Omissions: Take a peek at this pike from the peak – but leave the peke behind

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

Bryan Clarke writes from Dartford in Kent to draw attention to this, from a picture caption in last Saturday's magazine: "Take a peak at his rarely glimpsed later works." That should, of course, be "peek".

Wayne Rooney

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:23 GMT

On January 7 we published a story, headlined on the print edition's front page, suggesting Wayne Rooney could be sold in the January transfer window because of a damaged working relationship between him and Sir Alex Ferguson ("Ferguson willing to sell Rooney during transfer window", by James Lawton). We said there was a strong feeling around Manchester United that Sir Alex believed he had "lost control of Rooney". We now accept that the working relationship between player and manager is strong and are happy to reiterate the statement, issued jointly by Rooney and Manchester United on the night of publication (and included in our story in later editions), that player and manager look forward to working together for seasons to come. We also accept that no moves were made to sell Wayne Rooney during the January transfer window.

Errors & Omissions: We should appreciate the dignified calm of 11 monosyllables

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:00:01 GMT

It isn't Christmas, so this column has no business being nice to anyone, but just relish this sentence, from a film review by Anthony Quinn, published yesterday.