Thursday, February 19, 2004
An article in today’s Indo describes the problems facing Bewley’s: ‘Bewley’s, which also announced the closure of a northside bakery, said there was a question over the future of the iconoclastic caf?s as a result of Luas disruption, falling numbers of passers-by and steep increases in rates, rent and insurance’ (my emphasis).
Wow. And I thought the cafes were traditional and conservative. Instead it turns out they (to quote the American Heritage dictionary) ‘attack and seek to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions’. I suppose the flock wallpaper should have tipped me off.
Clearly the journalist meant the exact opposite of what he said, a mistake made worse when the quote two paragraphs down uses the word ‘icon’ more or less correctly. But where were the sub-editors? Broadsheet or tabloid size, that’s pretty bad.
It’s not too long ago that the Irish Times ran a letter lamenting the amount of violence on our streets that included the horrific description of someone being ‘kicked into a comma’. Copies of ‘Eats Shoots & Leaves’ for both sets of subs?