The act of omission in our current culture is more difficult than the act of commission.

FORBES: Practicing Medicine Against the Evidence: The Case of Implantable Defibrillators

Not only must there usually be an agreement between two or more parties, but there is also an additional requirement that a sufficiency of evidence exists to establish, on balance, that the act or omission complained of was deliberate and not merely negligent or inadvertent.

BBC: How has collusion been defined?

Currently, almost any accounting system you can think of records mistakes of commission, when a deliberate act goes wrong, but keeps no record of mistakes of omission: things not done that should have been.

ECONOMIST: In praise of the ideas of Russ Ackoff

Those of us on the left who support the act because it is better than doing nothing loudly lament not only its omission of a public option, but more importantly the fact that it is not a single-payer, publicly financed, privately delivered, health-care plan.

ECONOMIST: Letters

Rose admitted he had been "deflated" by his Ryder Cup omission - an act which Montgomerie described as "the worst day of my professional career" - but added he was "proud of how some of my friends played out there... and I am more excited than ever to get into the team for 2012".

BBC: Justin Rose resigns membership of European Tour