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Published online 24 April 2006 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news060424-1

Column

Molluscs of mass destruction

It is a crime against humanity when professional communicators manage to get language so horribly muddled, says Henry Gee.

For the past few weeks I've been busy completing a book, and so haven't had much time to listen to the radio, nor watch TV. But now, having switched back on to these means of mass communication, it seems that news and current-affairs shows have been taken over by a horde of lexical barbarians whose mission seems to be to assault my ears with a barrage of grammatical and stylistic solecisms.

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