Lavengro

The BBC and the garden path

The BBC’s UK news page says:

Memorial for stab death teacher

Tributes are paid to a teacher who was stabbed to death at a school in Leeds by her family, friends and civic dignitaries at a memorial service attended by hundreds.

BBC English: their, there and they’re

(Click to enlarge the image.)

The BBC quotes David Cameron on the result of the Scottish referendum on its live blog (07.50):

"Now the debate has been settled for a generation, or as Alex Salmond has said: 'Perhaps for a lifetime'. So their can be no disputes, no re-runs, we have heard the will of the Scottish people. (My emphasis.)

I long ago gave up using the BBC as a model of English usage for my students but even so this is egregious. The confusion of their, there and they’re is well known – so well known that for that very reason the correct use of these words should be second nature to BBC writers.

For those who may not be sure there is a simple way to remember which is which.

• Their is the possessive of they. The y changes to i as happens in other cases in English: easy/easier or lady/ladies for example.
• There has the same form as its opposite here. This is a coincidence but it is useful to help the memory.
• They’re is the contraction of they are with the apostrophe representing the missing a.

And now there is this (10.38):

Sandra voted No: "I was terribly worried because I feel that united we stand, divided we fall." She adds that she never waivered in her decision.

Sans serif confusion again

I have mentioned a problem with sans serif fonts. I have found it again. The Islamic State (IS in English) is el Estado Islámico in Spanish, which has the abbreviation EI. However, in a sans serif font, as us used by El País for example, this is virtually indistinguishable from the definite article El, which precedes it. The fist image is clipped from Firefox at maximum size.

I saved that image and then increased it to 1200%. There is a very slight visible difference at this magnification but nothing like enough to be seen when read in normal size. So readers have El EI written confusingly as two identical words.Click to enlarge.