Peruvian poverty

• 8 December 2022 11:25 UTC+01:00
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BBC

BBC

The BBC home page has a link to a story on the ousting of Peru's president, Pedro Castillo. Except the link (right) refers to Peru rather than Peruvian or Peru's president. The article's headline does correct the error though (top), so at least somebody's awake at the editorial desk.

Unfortunately, the story ends with links to three related articles, each repeating the same error (below).

I've noted this grammatical sloppiness before, and promised not to harp on about it in future. But in this case I think I can see where the BBC's editorial team is coming from. And I sympathise.

The proper use of Canadian to describe someone or something belonging to or hailing from from Canada adds two letters, and extends the adjective by less than 35%. Peruvian, however, adds four letters, which is an increase of 100% over Peru. Clearly, as the BBC moves from reliance on the British licence payers' largesse to a leaner-and-meaner cost structure, savings have to be made. Those electron thingies don't just pay for themselves, y'know. (pipe)

Nevertheless, we have to conclude that the English language just isn't that important within the hallowed walls of Most­Trusted­International­News­Broadcaster Towers. At least they don't lay claim to being the world's most trusted English language reference. So there's that, I suppose. (shrug)