Letter to the Mayor

Dear Sir,

As a Londoner and a regular user of the transport facilities, one cannot miss the ‘communications’ from ‘Transport for London’. Clearly your communications team would not be doing their job if Londoners and visitors were missing the posters, leaflets and announcements.

I do, however, believe that there is a gap in your communications team for an Editor, who would make sure that communications are correct when presented to the public. Consider this poster as an example:



A big poster that is supposed to engage Londoners with the improvements taking place, and keep them informed of the changes to their network. This was clearly not checked – you cannot have ‘less delays’ – it does not make any grammatical or linguistic sense. It should, of course, be either ‘fewer delays’ or ‘lesser delays’ depending on what you are trying to say. Similarly just a bit further down, the poster says ‘a multi-billion pound upgrade’ – this tells us that the Jubilee Line is being made heavier, or that the coins used to pay for it are to be refurbished. Naturally, it should be ‘a multi-billion-pound upgrade’. My purpose in writing is not to lecture on language, but I would be happy to explain both of these further should you wish me to.

Another example might be on the Jubilee Line. The digital announcements regularly say: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, there is currently a good service operating on the Jubilee Line this morning’. This is linguistically impossible because it is tautologous – it is like me saying: ‘I am right at this moment going to buy a car this morning’ – totally nonsensical.

My last collected example is that when I passed through Kings Cross Underground Station last week, an announcement said ‘The Victoria and Hammersmith and City Line is running with minor delays’. Again, this is nonsensical – there is no such line as the ‘Victoria and Hammersmith and City’.

As I have mentioned, I am a Londoner; I am also an Editor for a publishing house and I firmly believe that London should have a transport system that is world-leading. Regardless of how people might generally perceive the importance of English grammar and language, I do not think it is right for an organization that needs to command the respect of people across all spectra, to be slack and incorrect in its home language. It is fine when creating a trendy and catchy pun/play on words – but to me and to doubtless many others, the examples I give just look and sound messy and amateur.

Should it be of interest to you, I am looking for a change of direction in my own career. If the situation were mutually suitable, I would happily work for TfL as an Editor making sure all public communications were correct and professional. If you have someone doing this job already, it is clearly not being done satisfactorily. I suspect you do not have someone in the position ¬– maybe if you did, it would stop annoying letters like this one, and command you greater respect with powers that be.

With good wishes

Yours sincerely





Jonathan Lee.