Shifting Expectations

Alastair Darling spoke on Eddie Mair's show on Radio 4 this evening. He was talking about the steps George Osborne is taking to address the banking system and its perceived problems. In relation to these steps, Mr Darling said that "no banking system can ever be safe" but that any steps being taken should be intended to "make the system safer". Clearly this makes no sense. If the system cannot be safe, then surely it cannot therefore be SAFER ie more safe. Call me a pedant Mr Darling, but I think you meant that the steps would make the system less unsafe. I just hope I haven't made any spelling or grammatical errors in this post! That is all...

A couple of items in the media caught my attention and started me thinking about the strange beast that is the English language. Firstly, there was an interview on Radio 5 Live with two people in Corby in connection with the story about birth defects and the link with toxic waste . During the course of the interview both interviewees either used a word incorrectly or made up a word. In both cases, on first hearing, it was almost possible to believe that the words were correct, but something jarred and the errors made me laugh and despair at the same time. In the first instance, the interviewee said that "the council was clearly negligible " in their dealings with the toxic waste. In the second instance, a few seconds later a second interviewee said that "the ruling showed that there had clearly been neglection on the part of the council...". I assume that the first interviewee meant to say negligent and the second neglect, but the two mistakes started me thin...