falsely retracting claims

December 16th, 2010 § 0 comments

I try not to do pedantry, due to usually getting it wrong or making a glaring mistake myself, leaving myself open to ridicule. I should be used to it by now.

I do have an issue with a phrase that keeps popping up recently, though. It is to do with the recent discussion about how retracted rape claims are dealt with. Not the actual guidelines but a phrase that is used, especially by the BBC. It’s a variation on

…falsely retracted claims…

As far as I can see there are two reasons why a rape claim would be retracted 1) the claimant has been pressured to withdraw it or 2) the rape didn’t actually happen.

For either of these reasons the claim is actually retracted. The second reason the claim itself maybe false but the retraction is real. Surely because a retraction either happens or it doesn’t you can’t ‘falsely retract’ a claim?

The phrase that should be used is…

retraction of false claims

How come the media is getting this wrong, it seems so glaringly obvious.

Anyone care to enlighten me?

(Posted using my phone so, please, excuse the spelling)

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