Pensioners bare brunt of British inflation

STANDARDS!!!!! Pensioners BEAR brunt of inflation.

Johnny

Yes. We corrected

(File photo)

Chuck Berry won’t sing for ‘Johnny’ in US election

 ”In the ’50s there were certain places we couldn’t ride on the bus,” Berry said. “And now there is a possibility of a black man being in White House. Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last,” he said, quoting the words of a Negro spiritual song famously invoked by assassinated civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King Jr.

I can only hope that the reporter and editors on this story are Brazilian and therefore unfamiliar with how archaic and offensive the term “Negro” is considered here in the U.S.  Seriously.

Kate

We did not use the term “Negro,” we used the term “Negro spiritual,” which is still in wide use. You can go to negrospiritual.com, you may order numerous recordings of Negro spirituals from amazon.com, and so on. And, in a forum which attracts vocal and varied opinions about our news content daily, I believe yours was the only e-mail we received about this subject: GBU Editor

Obama admits reference to Auschwitz was wrong  

“I had an uncle who was … part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps,” Obama said.  

Obama said, “A uncle…” not “An uncle.” You have your quote wrong. Obama made a gramatical error that you are correcting. He is all over the radio and TV saying the statement incorrectly. Why aren’t you quoting him the way he said it?

J.F.

We do not intentionally clean up grammatical errors for anybody. Various news organizations reported the quote with “a uncle” or “an uncle” - some used both versions. You can see here, as the reader points out, Obama did say “a uncle.”

REUTERS photo by Rick Wilking

Your Brazilian site has a wrong automatic translator. This month is MAY, and your Brazilian website translates”may” as a word that in Brazil means: “MAY I go to the bathroom?” In English, this words are the same, but not in Portuguese. 

Renato

Your Brazilian website is incorrectly translating dates from English.  The date “Monday, May 12 2008″ is currently being translated as “segunda-feira, 12 de pode de 2008″, which mistranslates “May” (”maio” in Portuguese) to “pode”, which means “may” in the sense of “can, is able to”.

Fabio

Understandably, lots of people noticed that one. We’ve fixed the problem: GBU Editor

Obama hits out at Clinton for negative campaign 

Hits out… who ever heard of such a thing?  I guess you will save the term “LASHES OUT” for the Republican candidate?

Michael

What does “hits out” mean? I’ve never used “hits out” in my life and I have never heard anyone use it. 

B.E.

It’s not terribly obscure. My dictionary includes the following as one definition for the word hit: “to assail effectively and sharply (often fol. by out): The speech hits out at warmongering.” GBU Editor

REUTERS photo by Frank Polich 

Ship hired by US military fires warning shots in Gulf  

In March, another U.S. military-chartered ship preparing to cross the Suez Canal fired warning shots at a small boat, killing an Egyptian on board.  

Warning shots? You do not get killed by warning shots. Why do you allow your writers to merely repeat what the military’s public relations officers say? It’s no wonder the Bush administration was able to drag us into war in Iraq as easily as they did. 

Alex

It does seem that when someone is killed, the distinction between warning shots and just plain shooting at the boat is pretty difficult to spot: GBU Editor

U.S. forces free AP photographer in Iraq after 2 yrs

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer working for the Associated Press in Iraq was freed from U.S. military custody on Wednesday after being held without charge for two years, the news agency said.

Your headline should have read, “U.S. forces release AP photographer in Iraq after 2 years.” Funny how this small change makes what really happen so much clearer. Was this “Spin” to obscure the real facts, or an oversight?

Bill S. An oversight, and you make a fair point. Our original headline was ambiguous, and readers could have concluded that someone else was holding the photographer until U.S. forces rescued him. We subsequently issued the story with the headline you suggested: GBU Editor

REUTERS photo by Andrea Comas

Young Pennsylvania voters take a shine to Obama

I think a news headline about taking a “shine” to a man of color is considered in poor taste, at best.

Mark S.

Please reseach Black folklore and historical use of the term “Shine” that your use in the same sentence with Sen Obama. I think you will find it, if not inappropriate, at least a pretty odd choice of words.

Tony R. Several readers pointed this out to us. There are vast numbers of people who do not know the slang meaning of the word: “Disparaging and offensive. A black person.”

When our editors became aware of it, the headline was changed: GBU Editor

REUTERS photo by Tim Shaffer

Bush climate plan said too little, too late  

On Wednesday, President George W. Bush unveiled a plan to halt the growth of U.S. emissions by 2025, toughening a previous goal of braking the growth of emissions by 2012. The United States and China are the top emitters. 

I don’t understand how allowing oneself an extra 13 years to achieve what appears to be the same goal is “toughening” it. Is this a typo, or am I misreading it?

Curt H.

Several readers were confused by this. The intended distinction was between HALTING and BRAKING - that is, between stopping and merely slowing - but it doesn’t seem to have been clear enough: GBU Editor

Regarding your video report on the NYC court case, Rowling is pronounced like ‘rolling’, or ‘bowling’, not ‘rao-ling’.

S.Y.S.

Yes, we did this in two separate video reports this week. We’re trying to see that it doesn’t happen again; GBU Editor