Andy Richardson: Accuracy is key, you mark my words

It's not what I meant to say. So, let's start again.

Actually, let's not. Let's leave it to the people who really know how to get this party started. Let's leave it to TeamTeamTeam.

Cracking a few jokes and writing clever stuff – alright, you at the back, downgrade me if you must: 'vaguely' clever stuff – about Banks's Mild, peanuts and dogs with floppy fringes is the easy part of Life In Weekend Towers.

And I must stop using the word 'Towers'. It conjures an illusion of grandeur when we actually work on the ground floor, dammit. That's in a literal and metaphorical sense. 'Towers' is as relevant in my working life as a beach ball is at a massage parlour for nuns. But I digress. And I've no idea where the massage parlour for nuns thing came from; I must stop eating cheese before I go to sleep. And thinking about nuns. And playing with beach balls.

Anyway. . .

The clever stuff round these parts is done by TeamTeamTeam; the artists and editors who make us work-a-day word monkeys look better than we are. They're the ones who notice stuff like this: "The restaurant offered a tasting menu. There was a choice between five courses and eight courses. I chose nine." Which is funny, isn't it.

When that happens – it's usually a couple of times a week – TeamTeamTeam makes a benevolent interjection. They call us up and say things to us not-about-the-detail-word-monkeys like: "Erm, maths. . . Did you pass your GCSE?" After which they discreetly change the number from nine to eight, so we don't look like the idiots we are. Ah, professionalism, eh: dontcha, dontcha, dontcha just love it.

There are better examples of their interjections than that, though most of them involve words that we're not allowed to say in a family newspaper. TeamTeamTeam, aka The Word Police, filter them out like radio-nuclear ninja warriors siphoning gamma rays into a concrete-encased lead box. Somewhere in a backstairs cupboard in Wolverhampton exists a monument made of discarded swear words.

It's not just word monkeys who get it wrong. Let's take the examples of teachers. They're the ones who are supposed to be responsible for educating a new generation. They're the ones who are setting our new leaders on the path to their future careers. But they're just as bad as us.

When education supplements loom, they send in words telling us how great their schools are. And that means the parents of the West Midlands can make informed choices about which schools to send their children to.

Amid the bluster and hype, they tell us how nurturing their classrooms are. At least that's what you read. What they send to us is this: 'Our classrooms are very neutering'. And the last time I looked, neutering was all about:

a) castration, or

b) rendering something ineffective.

Now, a nurturing classroom sounds great. It hints at care and protection, at helping and providing encouragement, at developing and cherishing our next generation of scientists, world leaders and architects.

Classrooms that neuter hints at dark buildings where dodgy back-street would-be Sweeney Todds come to the classroom armed with a scalpel. Who knew a misplaced vowel and consonant could make such a difference.

TeamTeamTeam are the ones who pick that stuff up. They make otherwise dull stories shiny and glossy. So when word monkeys are struggling to think of headlines for articles about, say, A-Ha, and when they're obsessing about clichéd variants of Take On Me; TeamTeamTeam are the archly creative, leftfield thinkers who come up with 'Nor-Way, Morten'. And you have to take your Dale of Norway Glittertind Weatherproof hat off to that one.

TeamTeamTeam take rough diamonds and polish them until they're the Koh-i-Noor. They make articles readable and accurate. From terminology to tautology, making sure we don't mix up a councillor with a counsellor, or mistake a Parliamentary Whip with something that an old madam might use, they're the brains behind this operation.

They know everything there is to know about everything. Take commonly misspelled names, like Teresa/Theresa, for instance. Members of TeamTeamTeam know that our Home Secretary is Theresa May.

So when word monkeys put through stories about Teresa May, they know to get it changed. And it's a good job they do. For there is a Teresa May out there who plies a trade that the Home Secretary has never been involved in.

From Home Secretary to porn star in the flick of a dropped 'h', who'd have thought it?