If you can't get it right, do it wrong
I don't know whether to file this under idiot cheats
or idiot editors
, so I'll tag it with both.
Two Indian climbers, Narender Singh Yadav and Seema Rani, along with their team leader, Naba Kumar Phukon, have been banned retrospectively from mountaineering in Nepal for six years, after faking a 2016 climb of Mt Everest. While conquering Everest is considered to be a shining feat for mountaineers around the globe
, it's not as if it hasn't been done many times before. Hell's teeth, it's like Piccadilly Circus up there.
And it's not as if Yadav and Rani even put any real effort into cheating properly. Although they submitted fake documents and photographs, even Phukon wasn't convinced that they had scaled the summit, alleging that a photo of Yadav at the summit was fake.
Phukon’s version of events is that when he was returning after scaling the peak, he had seen Yadav and Rani at South Col (a ridge). “Their oxygen cylinders were not working and their sherpa Dawa Sherpa too was not there. Seeing their condition, I told both of them to return (to base camp). Later, I met Rani at Lhotse Face and she was suffering from frostbite. I called the sherpas at base camp and they launched a rescue for her. Yadav had already left for the base camp,” Phukon said.
Nitin Sharma, The Indian Express
Obviously, the article doesn't give the full details of the events and the hearing, but the six-year ban handed to Phukon seems a bit harsh. He exposed the cheating, claimed no role in it, and was a witness against the climbers.
The Indian Express 1:0 BBC News
Nepal bans Indian climbers for faking Everest summit
The Indian Express led its article on this story with: Two Indians banned after Mount Everest summit climb found to be fake
. But, turning to the BBC's report on this story, we have the headline to the right.
Seriously, Auntie Beeb, what on earth is wrong with using the proper adjective for people from India? For anyone who thinks that I'm being unduly harsh and pedantic, this is not the first time that I've noticed this linguistic sloppiness in a BBC news article. Putting your articles on the web means that they can be accessed globally, by people for whom English is not their mother tongue. The least that you could do is get it right so as not to mislead them. You wouldn't refer to Britain climbers
or America climbers
, would you? Or perhaps you would, in which case you're a moron. (mad)
Grammar nazi? Me? Yeah, I guess. (sad)