thedanglingmodifier.co.uk

The wind is howling outside my window and I sit at my computer coughing and trying to catch my breath. Despite the cold , the rain and relentless wind, I’m hot, burning up, and my head and muscles ache. I keep thinking I should eat something but I’m just not hungry and I think there’s a swelling in my throat. I don’t feel at all well. May be I should call someone – someone who could help me?

I know, why not call ‘The Sun’? After all, they advised England’s first human-to-human swine flu case. They don’t say exactly what advice they gave but are clearly upset about a new government report on swine flu: ‘Surge capacity and prioritisation in the health service’.

But it’s not the ridiculously over-formal title that upsets ‘The Sun’ even though this was clearly designed to confuse and to mock any editorial staff who might have to work on the report. Why else would anyone use ‘surge’ as an adjective to describe ‘capacity’?

Subheads

‘The Sun’ uses inspiring subheads like ‘heart-rending’ and ‘anger’, and readers seem a bit upset. Their comments squabble over who should be first in line for the tamiflu until someone asks in capital letters with lots of question marks:

“IS THIS FLU A TERRORIST IMPLANT??? JUST HOW DID THIS START??”

Rude health

So at least capital letters are in rude health, even if the rest of us a coughing and spluttering. The Swine flu information leaflet’s out and full of them. It’s gratifying to see that the Government have clearly used a marketing professional – and probably paid them oodles of cash – to come up with:

CATCH IT, BIN IT, KILL IT

I could have written that – I’ve done the course now.

The leaflet shouts:

WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?

And suggests we all set up a network of ‘flu friends’, which is obviously going to be easier for some than for others.

Meanwhile, David Cameron has been calling for a ‘full-scale, root-and-branch’ inquiry into what went wrong at a Staffordshire hospital. He’s promised a Tory ‘information revolution’ to end Labour’s ‘culture of top-down targets and tick-box adherence”.

And he’s promised to introduce another acronym – ‘patient-reported outcome measures’ (PROM).

Isn’t that capital!