Clarity Warranted. David Lipschitz letter to the Cape Times published Mon 11 Jul 2016

My article "Britain, EU must become true partners in diverse world" (Cape Times, July 7) refers.

In the third-last paragraph, the editor misunderstood the intention of my sentence and added a "to" which changed the meaning of my intention.

Here is the edited version: "Global economic recession" and "currency devaluation" and "leaderless political parties" and Martin Shultz, president of the European Parliament saying that "the Tories have taken us hostage" are all to blame and scapegoats. What I wanted to say is that everything in quotes is being blamed and that these are scapegoats preventing the British people from traversing "the valley".

These are all sentences that are put out there by people who don't want this change and who don't want to change. From a South African perspective, I've called this fear: "waiting for the future whilst blaming the past".

And here is my original version: "Global economic recession" and "currency devaluation" and 'leaderless political parties' and Martin Shultz, president of the European Parliament saying that "the Tories have taken us hostage" are all blame and scapegoats.

We need to take the time to understand the meaning and intention in what people are telling us. This is critically important as we move forward in our globally diverse and complex world, where misunderstandings and "half-truths" (where we only hear or read half the sentence, and where the meaning of the sentence is lost) are rife.

Note that after every one of my letters and articles are published, I compare what I wrote with what was published, and I learn more and more about journalism, editing, grammar and how newspapers work. Normally I accept all the corrections, but in this particular case, i needed to send this correction.