Nothing to crow about

Spotted in yesterday's Guardian, and still to be found here, in a piece about a memorial service for Sir Edmund Hillary, a sad but faintly hilarious (no pun intended) example of that common fault in writing, the misrelated participle:

Featuring Tibetan prayer wheels against a blue background, the knights escorting it paused at the back of the chapel while Mereana Hond, a human rights lawyer and TV journalist, performed the karanga welcome call.

As always, there is a moment when you envisage what is suggested. I wish I could draw - for the knights featuring prayer wheels sound like something out of th Revelation of St John the Divine. Tsk tsk.

And today, a word for the passing of a crow. We passed it on the shore path, apparently too feeble to do more than fly a yard or so in front of us. We skirted it quietly and left it standing in the late afternoon sun in the middle of the path. When we returned an hour or so later, it was dead. It seemed to have keeled over where we had left it.

It seemed a peaceful way to go.

Brainless twats, anyone?

I'm indebted to Neil for this wonderful link today. Imagine the joy of reading the news in the vernacular! Imagine the relief of no longer having to teach kids that formal prose was the biz (unless you were indulging in a bit of judiciously-rationed dialogue). Next we'll have regional newsreaders with their own special way of reporting, and visiting foreigners will remain totally in the dark. And the only place where current standards will apply will be London - unless of course it's Walford's day.

But then I realise that it would be even easier to slip into the horrors of slack writing while readers were diverted by vernacular expression. If you read, for example, the fourth paragraph of the story linked to, you'll find that a bus started its engine and released the handbrake - an engaging vision, but not, I think, meant. Cops and brainless twats I can take, but not misrelated participial phrases. Oh no.

Back to the Guardian ...

Update: someone has removed the piece from the site. Commiserations if you missed it - it was a joy.
Latest : You can still read it here, thanks to the Google cache.