Dear Editor,
Please allow me to gently remind you that as the editor of a prominent newspaper you are on the world stage, in this globalized world. And so is Guyana through your paper. I have noticed serious lapses in grammar recently in your editorials. Now you have added what looks like a basic misunderstanding of a common English idiom to your list of infractions.
In your otherwise excellent editorial on the CCJ there was a bit of bathos when you moved from the sublime “cri de coeur” to the ridiculous “come to heal.” I suspect that what you intended was a paraphrase of the idiom “bring to heel.” The idiom has to do with the part of the body associated with discipline and nothing to do with healing.
Please take this as my own cry from the heart on behalf of English in Guyana. It is hard enough to have to squirm with discomfort listening to and reading these errors coming from every direction. It is quite another to have to deal with them from sources from which we expect the gold standard. Perhaps I can venture a famous Latin question to match your French. Et tu Brute?
Yours faithfully,
Frederick W A Collins
Editor’s note
We fear that Mr Collins has misread the phrase cited; what appeared in both our print and internet editions was “come to heel” (not ‘heal’). ‘Come to heel’ is perfectly acceptable English idiom. The relevant sentence read: “Some… may well argue that Sir Shridath is crying wolf in order to get public pressure to force the recalcitrant countries to come to heel.”
