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15 November 2017

Editing today: spot the wrong word!

Editing today and came across this unconsciously amusing sentence. Can you spot the wrongly used word?
"...in the Doing Business ranking of the World Bank, which assesses the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it, Russia has been steadily climbing upstairs and was placed in 2017 the 35th among 190 countries...." 

3 comments:

  1. Karl CooperNovember 16, 2017 at 6:14 PM

    The obvious one is 'upstairs', 'climbing' on it's own would be best. Or, have I missed the point and there's a more subtle answer, such as replacing 'ranking of' with 'rankings by'?

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  2. UnknownDecember 18, 2017 at 2:43 PM

    Confusingly, ‘to be kicked upstairs’ has the colloquial meaning of being appointed a member of the House of Lords.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousFebruary 23, 2018 at 11:35 PM

    Seems to me "upstairs" can be dropped or replaced with "up". Climbing alone may not tell the full story, see https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/climb
    to go about or down usually by grasping or holding with the hands climb down the ladder
    But then my mother's tongue is Russian :-)

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