I don’t (definedly) either…it might be Ben :
has strong sense of respect towards the monarchy
has strong sense of respect towards presidential system and the meaning of head of state derived from that
is completely fed up with amateur or uneducated reporting of any kind
the reason you mentioned
other
?
TBH, I’ve been clueless all along.
I had been waiting for someone else to put me on the correct path. Or any path that peaked my interest.
Given the grammatical bent of the discussions above, and the highlighted phrase I didn’t think about the semantics to start with. It’s an odd plural form but used widely enough in that way that I assume it’s OK. The person in question was a head of government but as expressing strong opinion (rather than just tutting) about such a mistake is getting close to CCCP#4 I am not sure that is the issue either.
I’m pretty sure it was the “head of state” statement.
According to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_state
"A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state[1] in its unity and legitimacy. Depending on the country’s form of government and separation of powers, the head of state may be a ceremonial figurehead (such as the British monarch) or concurrently the head of government and more (such as the president of the United States, who is also commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces).
In a parliamentary system, such as the United Kingdom or India, the head of state usually has mostly ceremonial powers, with a separate head of government."
Liz Truss was briefly a head of government.
Well, for me it’s all come to hang on a missing hyphen. In describing Truss as among “the shortest serving heads of state”, I see an argument made that her verticality is not actually all that abridged (which I have no knowledge of one way or the other). With “shortest-serving heads of state”, surely there can be little dispute.
Which, of course, has nothing to do with Ben’s emphasis in the slightest, but please - at the end of the day, orthography is our friend.
Basically, I’m twiddling my thumbs, here.
I wouldn’t use that hyphen, but really, that’s irrelevant. Truss was never “Head of State,” just as Johnson was not “Head of State” before her, and Sunak is not “Head of State” now. It’s an insult to our country to claim that any of these people were “Head[s] of State”. That would be the King, and formerly the Queen.
How would you punctuate the same (corrected) expression used for Rishi Sunak then. Not that I think it should be an issue, but it seems to be for some.
I think it was just a mistake that caused you offence.
(or is this room 12A?)
Well I thought that was Ben’s reasoning, and I understand the offence caused. Technically parliamentary government takes place only at royal discretion, because of the power of veto of the monarch. In reality royal influence is exercised via government consultation with the privy council and other forms of arrangement. I don’t think the monarch even personally signs off new law normally but has delegated that, and veto has not been used since whenever, possibly the understanding in government business being that it exists is enough to command respect.
In reality though, royalty is reduced to almost symbolic as far as outright say is concerned, I would think there is no wish of royals to directly openly intervene in parliamentary matters for the difficulty that would cause.
It is the unusual balance of power that UK has that confuses people, but if you take away recognition of royal authority, as per that text, then it would be to cause much trouble. To insinuate that the royal family does not possess final authority is probably against the law even, just as demeaning or insulting it is.
A good example of this is how the lords ability to veto the budget was eliminated early last century, which so allowed the shift to Keynesian economic “principles” and related government presentation to take form.
In short it matters, and it is also a direct insult to the established order (or disorder if you prefer), and the monarchy.
I don’t get upset about it, nor condone it…the author should at least be pulled up for misrepresentation . How is anyone supposed to understand anything otherwise, if they go round thinking people are in charge when actually they aren’t ?
Quite right. To suggest they were mere figureheads rather than democratically elected representatives is indeed insulting.
I agree with you david, democratically elected representatives are definitely of a lower order than mere figureheads.
If they were all just figureheads it would be easy enough, you could post them all to various spits looking out to sea to warn off the enemy, like gargoyles sort of thing. I guess being on TV does the same but it gets hard for everyone else to avoid them sometimes, which is possibly why there is occasionally political tension in the country, what with being an island and all.
This is just another complaint about BBC news articles online:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64036465?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA
Title: Irmgard Furchner: Nazi typist guilty of complicity in 10,500 murders
Last paragraph of article:
“In 2020, another SS camp guard, Bruno Dey, was given a two-year suspected jail term for complicity in the murder of more than prisoners.”
Now what am I supposed to make of that?
BTW, BBC, you have a very tedious Contact form to advise of such errors or omissions. Full contact info, email verification links, etc.
That autocomplete or autocorrect can supply something (probably for ‘suspended’ in this case) that the grammar checker will accept. These things are training us to be circumspect in readiness for ChatGPT and its ilk.
Things like that are more common in the BBC’s ‘Live’ online reporting. However, less common than in some others’ equivalents. If I get trapped into following something ‘live’ I usually alternate between BBC and Guardian. The BBC has less typos and bad edits but is generally 10 minutes behind - maybe some sort of review process or greater care because there might be.
Fewer.
OK, I suspected “suspended”, but am concerned about the “…murder of more than prisoners.” Who? Staff? Visitors? Was some number of prisoners omitted?
OK - but you read it right. 
Wouldn’t that be something.
It may have been badly abbreviated from “including Jewish prisoners, non-Jewish Poles and captured Soviet soldiers.” as given in their longer report.
Not to sound like a crank (said the crank), but that never stopped me: In journalism, it’s clear that “badly” seems to have little of the cautionary force it once did. And the stance seems to be accepted. There’s been so much to contribute to this thread that the typos and gaffes are starting to seem trite, and it’s spoiling the fun.
With so many pages here, we have to have covered this back-in-my-day ground before.
'Twas, as they say, ever thus.
It appears so,
Ben’s OP wasn’t really about ‘fun’.
As several other people said on page 1 it’s not a problem for me. As my ‘posts messed up by careless editing’ count is probably higher than most I can’t complain.
Of course the above mentioned shifts of syntax prompt a verbal animosity as the multifaceted pre-conceptions that span all cognitive versions of interpretation become merged into a confused gibberish from which any particular point of view is as valid as the next. This only emphasises our own inadequacy of having relied on official correction for the small and basically futile return of participating in educating an author who probably resides on a computer chip, if not actually being one. In other words why are people reading what does not make sense, you would have thought that after a few obvious errors, let alone a constant stream of them, any reader would have chosen to switch to a more compatibility based model that vaunts a higher incoming ratio of vernacular reward. The resulting format of that would beneficiously conceptualise differing ideologies by mutually encompassing any varied and synonymous practical insignificance in a manner that is both new and understandable even to those not versed in primary habilitation techniques. Obviously this will be beyond the understanding of anyone who is reading given that the theory involved is based upon purely contemplative fiction. Nevertheless, should anyone manage to rationalise what I have just written I would thank them for explaining it to me.
Then please be kind enough to indulge me for feeling compelled to flog a dead horse.
Because I’m lazy, and like a fool continually hope for better self-respect out of the world of news writing. But the message seems to be that that noble profession, the editor, is now considered deadweight, and money ill spent.
If ditching humans and exploiting AI for unpaid editing purposes is the goal, I strongly suggest that until then, in publishing we are on our own and should act accordingly, for our flounderings will not attract some kind of cybernetic divine intervention all the sooner. And I wonder: Will AI labor unions arise one day?
Let me try: I believe that the message here is that sesquipedalianism does not offer any more clarity than does the phrase, “Kicking puppies bad.”