Mea Culpa: Signs and wonders

Susanna Richards is minding our language in last week’s Independent

The Latin word ‘prodigium’ – something extraordinary, once interpreted as a sign from the gods – is the origin of the word ‘prodigy’ (Getty/iStock)

It’s been a good week for errors, if one can say that: I suppose we are bound to make them, and it is much more fun to write about them when they are interesting ones.

Public embarrassment: In an article about a bishop in California, we said: “Bishop Rohrer is the first publically transgender person holding the post in any mainline Christian denomination.”

Publically? Well, quite, was my response when one of our correspondents, Roger Thetford, pointed out: “Is the adverb formed from the non-existent adjective ‘publical’? No.” It’s been fixed.