Lazy locution

J Kaufman · **Posted:** Mon Aug 24, 2009 5:26 pm

Quote:

APIA, Samoa -- Sometime in the early morning hours of Sept. 7, residents of this small Pacific island nation will stop their cars, take a deep breath, and do something most people would think is suicidal: Start driving on the other side of the road.

Samoa is about to become what's believed to be the first nation since the 1970s to order its drivers to switch from one side of the road to the other. That's spawned an islandwide case of road rage. Opponents have organized two of the biggest protests in Samoan history, and a new activist group -- People Against Switching Sides, or PASS -- has geared up to fight the plan.

[WSJ]

Well, it is or it isn't, the number of nations is finite, and this is a feature story, so there was time for the writer or an "editor" to check up. Since Fiji also drives on the wrong side and is situated in the same hemisphere, I can only assume that the no-pants rule, the death of democracy and folks walking on a globe head-downward have caused this madness to spread.

Rio · **Posted:** Mon Aug 24, 2009 9:30 pm

Agreed, this is egregious laziness in both reporting and editing.

I also noted that the reporter's principal source for the side-switching dates he does have is a book that has been out of print for almost a quarter-century. And what's with calling the plan a "scheme"? Letting the reporter use a British term like this, one with negative connotations in American English, is another sign of sloppy editing.

This of course follows another post on this board, about the Lockerbie bomber's "prostrate cancer." Not a good day for the WSJ.

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Tue Aug 25, 2009 9:52 pm

Fair comment to call it hatching a scheme, given that nation's constitution.

Not too chuffed with having a US territory of American Samoa in the neighborhood either.

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Lazy locution

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