Thursday, July 30, 2015

BBC Dreadful Language Swarm Shock

David Cameron has been in the firing line for using the word 'swarms' as a collective noun for people. How very very dreadful. After all, the BBC wouldn't do that would they?

Oh: it looks like Americans swarm
you can see the vast swarms of people who turned out to see the inauguration.

and so do Christians
The preacher and other members of the crowd swarm around him, and join him in dance

How very very shocking, dreadful, divisive and inflammatory. I feel whipped up against Americans and Christians just as a result of hearing the term used once. But I'm sure all the people having a go at Cameron today are, behind the scenes, working really really hard to find a way to solve the problem, rather than just having an opportunist pop and trying to get people worked up about a non-issue. 

update
and Syrians
and Nigerians

If I didn't know any better I'd venture that 'swarm' was a common way of referring to the behaviour of crowds.


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