When it comes to grumping, I normally reserve the first place in the queue for me. (Only last week, on the Today programme, I heard a government “spokesperson” talking about “harms” that befall people; presumably, these are first cousins to their “behaviours”.) But this column is a broad church and I am more than happy to leave the pulpit for other tortured souls to vent their spleens. Take, for example, the following heartfelt missive.
“Why do so many writers from the Observer/Guardian (and London Review of Books etc, ie clever-clogs writers) use ‘trope’ when they mean ‘topos’,” asks my correspondent, Alan Campbell. “A ‘trope’ is a metaphor. A ‘topos’ is a common theme.
“The malapropism began to appear in the 70s and 80s when ‘postmodernism’ was flourishing. Someone wrote ‘trope’ instead of ‘topos’ and it sounded smart. So ‘trope’ became the word for a common theme.”
I couldn’t agree more – I hope I’m assiduous in weeding out tropes on the Observer. They’re annoying little buggers, highly infectious, and should be stamped on with all possible alacrity. As for the LRB, I couldn’t possibly say, but it may well be their natural habitat.
Mr Campbell offers partial salvation with the following: “I was hugely relieved to find a Guardian article by Philip Oltermann last year – ‘“Antisemitic” book taken off Der Spiegel bestseller list’ – in which a historian is quoted as saying: ‘I can find little else [in the book] other than the age-old antisemitic topos of Jewish vengefulness and mercilessness’.”
Alas, I can’t help another correspondent complaining about “musicians knowing their chops”. It’s time to climb into the trope-stamping boots and extirpate this scourge.
• Jonathan Bouquet is an Observer columnist
