I need to loudly lament (once again) the deceptive misuse of the word ‘mistake’ by people who have a black mark in their past they wish to minimise. ‘Yes,’ they admit, ‘when I was young I was (sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, a bank robber or whatever). But I was young, and I admit I made a mistake.’ Oh, no. Whatever they did was not a ‘mistake’ – at least not if we are going to treat the English language with respect. The core notion in ‘mistake’ is the idea of ‘miscarrying’.

Let’s say you and your neighbour each have a donkey, and they both graze in the same paddock. But you become fed up with your donkey and walk out into the paddock with your gun to shoot it. But when you go over to the dead animal, you discover you have shot your neighbour’s donkey. So, you walk to his back door, and say what? ‘Sorry, I have just killed your donkey by mistake.’

That’s correct, isn’t it? Your intention was to kill your own donkey, but your intention miscarried. That’s what the word ‘mistake’ means. But when a politician convicted of corruption walks out of prison and says, ‘I made a mistake, and I’d like to put it behind me,’ he (let’s assume it’s a ‘he’) is abusing the English language. No ‘mistake’ was involved. So, let’s start calling out those people who try to minimise their guilt by calling it a mistake. ‘No, when you walked into the bank with a ski mask over your face and a gun in your hand, you were not “making a mistake” you were breaking the law.’ Whatever else these white-washing folk are doing – they are not getting their claws into our language!