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Sometimes it's the little things that get to you. A misplaced apostrophe. A wrong emphasis. On TV last night a WWI drama was trailed and the voice-over mentioned 'passing
bells' with the stress on the word 'bells', as if the phrase was using 'passing' in the same sense as a passing thought or a passing pedestrian. This betrayed shameful ignorance of the intended reference to the first line of the WWI poem 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' by Wilfrid Owen: 'What passing-bells for those who die as cattle' - which only scans if you put the stress on 'passing'. Even so, as any ful kno (except the BBCTV voiceover person) a '
passing-bell' (emphasis on 'passing') is the word used for bells tolled after a funeral, just as 'wedding bells' are rung at weddings. The phrase is meaningless if you stress 'bells'. What did the voiceover person think a 'passing
bell' pronounced like that could be? And if she (it was a woman) didn't know - why didn't she ask? Harrumph.
