Do you ever worry that the English language's 750,000 words are not quite enough?
Staff at the Edinburgh Evening News must fear exactly that, since not only have they inadvertently used the same words as Spurtle but also the same words in exactly the same order within two days of their first appearance.
[img_assist|nid=1522|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=200|height=200]Take a look at our short piece anticipating Mr Motivator's weekend visit to Broughton. On 8 February we described his presence in the context of Eco Zone's campaign as 'a bid to raise awareness of and commitment to making a difference'. Two days later, offering no such context, the Evening News described it as 'a bid to raise awareness of and commitment to making a difference'.
It seems almost as if someone in a hurry has cut and pasted the phrase without acknowledging the source.
A coincidence? Of course! Trivial? Without doubt! But coincidences like this – and on much larger scales – just keep on happening at the Evening News, and usually we only draw attention to the ones which appear to echo the Spurtle. Unfortunately, these instances resemble the very sloppy journalism which the Evening News has itself parodied recently.
So what can Edinburgh's finest evening newspaper do in future to avoid such innocent repetitions and consequent public misgivings about the originality and ethics of its output?
One solution might be for Management to reassign reporters away from independent news-gathering towards trawling other media outlets in search of entirely accidental verbal concurrences.
Readers would surely welcome any such bid to raise awareness of and commitment to making a difference.