Monday, October 05, 2009

It's not a battle royale unless...

One source of annoyance for editor-types is when writers repeatedly use "battle royale" when they mean to write "battle royal".

For example, check out the headlines for these two stories which cover the tiff between the Negeri Sembilan and Johor royal families.


To clarify:

Battle Royale is the title of a 2000 Japanese film directed by Kinji Fukasaku, which is based on the novel of the same name by Koushun Takami. The film was quite controversial when it first came out. It is known for its violent scenes and dark humour.

The intended phrase, battle royal, is a very old idiom, and it means "a fight in which more than two combatants are engaged" or "a heated argument".

The Star apparently knows the difference between the two phrases and has not used it in recent months (though they've let it slip into their the citizen's blogs and letters to the editor).

In the case of the duelling royal houses, I suppose you could invoke the film title because apparently, a gun was involved.