Why does Jim Fitzpatrick MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, have responsibility for "shadow climate change"? As a Labour MP he is a member of the government, not the shadow government.
Is this just a daft mistake, or am I missing something? Perhaps it is Fitzpatrick's responsibility to keep tabs on the shadow climate change secretary, Greg Clark.
Whatever, there's definitely something shadowy going on.
7 comments:
It is a shade peculiar.
I'm in the dark!
I wonder if shadow could be a verb, in the sense of following and watching.
Yes, and I suppose that saying Fitzpatrick had responsibility for climate change (without the 'shadow') would make it sound like he was causing it to happen.
I'll bet it's meant to be a verb (though why not say "follow"?) and someone changed it from an -ing form thinking it had to be a noun phrase to match the other bullets.
Or else... I don't know.
I would probably have opted for 'track' or 'monitor' rather than 'follow' or (ugh) 'shadow'.
I love the concept of the shadow government. It sounds so incredibly sinister!
But since the term "shadow government" has a specific meaning, using it as a verb here was confusing.
I like The Ridger's idea-that it was originally "shadowing" and either someone was trying to be parallel or--more likely, to my way of thinking--they knew of the term "shadow secretary of defense" and stuff, and assumed that was what was meant.
Post a Comment