How to compare two things.

I read just now that:

'Gordon Taylor has apologised for comparing the Hillsborough tragedy to the Ched Evans rape case.' (Source - www.bbc.co.uk)

I wish he hadn't. Apologised, that is. Because that was not what he did. No such comparison was made. What he did was to give the Hillsborough case as an example of people being thought to be guilty and found innocent. Simply an example of something that does happen from time to time and that is a miscarriage of justice.

Now I am not making any pronouncement on the innocence or guilt of Ched Evans. He has been found guilty by a court; he continues to protest his innocence. We shall have to wait and see.

And of course I am bound, at this stage, in accordance with the rules of the game of language as currently played, to say that rape is rape, rape is serious, rape is a crime and the rapist is to blame. Otherwise I will be offending people who will think I am not taking it seriously enough.

Here's my problem. The world currently seems to take the view that putting two things in the same paragraph is comparing them. It isn't. And it is educated journalists, who should know better, who are making sure people who were never meant to be insulted fully understand the non-nuances of the insult that wasn't made so they feel insulted.

Strewth.