Scrapbook for April

01.04.2026 – USA v. Iran in 42 seconds

X/Twitter, Fox News, 29.03.2026.

01.04.2026 – Why I could never be a police call handler

An Irish person by the name of Morgan McSweeney is said to be the right-hand man and all-purpose fixer for the British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer. Not only is he Irish, he lives somewhere in the Highlands of Scotland.

He claimed that his official government phone was stolen on 20 October 2025 – nearly six months ago. It is assumed that this phone is replete with interesting exchanges with the long disgraced Peter Mandelson, making the theft of the phone extremely convenient for McSweeney, who is under pressure to reveal his dealings with said Mandelson. No backup exists either, apparently, which strikes one as odd for an official device… just even more suspension of disbelief for this tale.

McSweeney called the theft into the cops:

— Call handler: Police, what's your emergency?
— Caller: Oh, hello, someone just robbed my phone.
— Call handler: Did they actually take it from you just now?

English as she is spoke. Leaving 'did they actually take it from you just now' (translation: 'when did this happen?') to one side, there is a good reason that I could never get a job as a call handler. The conversation would have gone very differently:

— Call handler: Police, what's your emergency?
— Caller: Oh, hello, someone just robbed my phone.
— Could you put your phone on the line so that I can get some information directly from the victim?
— Er… No, someone just robbed my phone.
— Exactly. I need to speak to the victim.
— I'm the victim; my phone was robbed.
— Ah, I see. Do you mean to say that you have been robbed of your phone? That is, your phone has been stolen?
— Yes, that's right.
— Well, why didn't you say that in the first place?

Pedant's note

Seek and ye shall find. There are enough writers of defective English in the world to ensure that a search will find other instances of 'rob' being used where 'steal' is meant.

That does not legitimise its use, though. Using 'rob' in this way should be condemned, since 'steal' is perfectly clear in all situations and 'rob' is perfectly clear in its root meaning of 'depriving someone/something of something'.

The object of the transitive verb 'steal' is the thing stolen; the object of the transitive verb 'rob' is the person or thing deprived by the theft. The robber robs the person of the object, the thief steals the object from the person.

Using 'rob' for 'steal' is unnecessary and just muddies the clear meaning of the two verbs. 'We all know what he means' is no defence. If McSweeney wants to add a frisson of violence to the act, he could always use 'snatch', for example, but 'I have just been robbed of my phone' would be acceptable.

Pedantry it may be, but we serfs should not miss any opportunity, no matter how trivial, to give the arrogant, illiterate incompetents who have their boots on our necks a bit of a kicking.