Strike no cords

Some errors in the use or spelling of words seem to be perennial, perpetrated afresh by each generation in spite of the earnest efforts of teachers and pedants.

One such has appeared in a recent issue of The Week: “The singer . . . refused to speak while checking into the hotel, for fear of exhausting her vocal chords”. Actually it takes two or more singers to vocalise a chord, and it is hard to imagine how even the most uncomfortable of chords could become exhausted: but it seems unlikely that such thoughts passed through the mind of the writer.

But the late and usually careful Hilaire Belloc* provides a precedent for this error: “During the late election Lord / Roehampton strained a vocal chord / From shouting, very loud and high, / To lots and lots of people . . .” And in a later verse in the same piece “ ‘Oh ! My Lord, / you jeopardise your vocal chord !’ / broke in the worthy specialist”.

It should be 'vocal cord', of course.

* Careful in his use of language, that it is; but notoriously careless in the matter of checking facts. In this case, however, it may be an over-conscientious but ignorant typesetter who is to blame - and of course we might like to point a finger at that other excellent humourist, E.V.Knox, editor of Methuen’s Library of Humour, in a volume of which I found these mis-spellings printed.

Strike no cords