Not Washed or Cooked, # 96

The mangling year draws to a close with an unfortunate representation of its final month:

Link: The Independent of Bangladesh, ‘BCB planning to hold BCL in Decmber’

Happy New Year to all. What mangles will 2014 bring?

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 105

This error featured earlier in the month in some mangled carols and poems, and now has a second outing in a couple of other contexts.

The provanence of the first example is unclear, since the text reproduced below is taken from the website of the UCL Art Museum, which quotes the artist Stanley Spencer, but cites the Tate Gallery Archive as the source of the quotation:

Link: UCL Art Museum, ‘The Nativity’

The second example comes from the description of a nativity scene, available from the website of Creations by Todd (‘Home of Fine Custom-Created and Specialized Furniture and Accents to Match Your Lifestyle’): 

Link: Creations by Todd, ‘Three Dimensional Nativity Set’

Not Washed or Cooked, # 95

Today brings the last of the carols for this year, if not quite the last of the seasonal mangles…

First comes a typographical error from a source that managed to input it correctly the first time:

Link: ChapelMusic.com, Dona Klein, ‘Angels We Have Heard On High/Angles From the Realms of Glory’

The same error — again typed correctly elsewhere, and here compounded by an overuse of commas and a heinous combination of four nouns and a singular verb form — occurs in this passage of purple prose extracted from a longer piece:

Link: Church News: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ‘“Realms of Glory” […]’

The third attempt at this title makes a different error, and clearly wasn’t introduced to a spellchecker:

Link: Amazon.co.uk, ‘Angels From The Relms Of Glory’

Not Washed or Cooked, # 94

Some more Christmas carol challenges, comprising a pair of misspellings and something that might be a typographical error or a misunderstanding:

Link: BoomPak.com, ‘Good King Wenseslas — Percussion Ensemble Series with Boomwhackers®’

Link: LiveAuctionWorld.com, ‘Royal Doulton figure “Good King Wenceslass”’

Link: Amazon.co.uk, Gaelic Irish Song Masters ‘God King Wenceslas’

Not Washed or Cooked, # 93

A sentence (and possibly a whole novel) untroubled by spellchecking or proofreading:

Barbara Cathey, Death of a Saleswoman, self-published (Authorhouse), 2004, p. 40. Link: GoogleBooks

Not Washed or Cooked, # 92

Today we return the focus to an album from which we featured a track (number one in the list below) last Saturday. The second half of the track listing is fine, but the earlier titles include several mangles:

Link: CDBaby, Chris Norman & Riga Boys Choir, Christmas Together

Not Washed or Cooked, # 91

One word, so many mangles, so few spell-checkers… In alphabetical order, then:

Link: AutonomousEducation.com, ‘Making a Chistmas Tree Decoration’

Link: Shutterstock.com, ‘Chrestmas tree. Chrestmas and New Year Background’

Link: Boots, ‘Pharmacy & Healthcare Christmass offers’*

Link: Krrb, ‘Royal Albert Christmes Magic — set of 8 footed cup’

Link: iTunes, ‘Children’s Christms Classics’

Link: Hagley Golf & Country Club, ‘Christmas Lunch and Dinner Menu — Christmas Day Menu’

Link: Visit Manchester, ‘Jingle Bell Chritmas at Bridgewater Hall’

Link: eBay.co.uk, ‘Charles & Camilia signed 2011 Chritmass card — 100% Genuine’

Link: South Holland District Council, ‘Crhistmas Lights Switch On’ (cached page, now withdrawn)

More mangles tomorrow. As for today: Merry Christmas, however you prefer to spell it!

* Because nothing says Christmas(s) like pharmacy and healthcare products…

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 104

My favourite Christmas contender this year comes from HigherPraise.com, a site that bills itself as ‘The Worlds [sic] Largest Free Christian Lyrics Chord Site’:

Link: HigherPraise.com, ‘Hark the Harold Angels Sing’

Business as usual tomorrow, by the way.

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 103

One of my favourites. Fortunately, the card itelf is correct:

Link: Cards & Gifts Direct, ‘Flocks By Night’

Not Washed or Cooked, # 90

This can be found on the Christmas Guide page of The Chichester Observer:

Link: The Chichester Observer, ‘Christmas’

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 102

On to the seasonal mangles from today, beginning with a fairly common error and including a stunningly bizarre bonus:

Link: Amazon.co.uk, Chris Norman/Riga Boys Choir, ‘Silent Night, Holly Night’

You Cannot Be Serious, # 22

Today’s mangle is one of my pet hates, and all the more heinous here since it appears in a piece of writing by someone who most certainly should know better ― and not any common or garden teacher, but someone whose self-description (which I’ve left in situ) makes plain is an important head teacher of a prestigious school:

Link: The Times (subscription access only), ‘Loose talk about sex’

Just in case you thought it was an aberration, this comes from later in the article:

You Cannot Be Serious, # 21

This might have been improved by the application of better punctuation, but the phrasing still seems very ugly, and all the more so given the juxtaposition with O’Toole’s elegant diction:

Link: The Guardian, ‘Peter O’Toole, star of Lawrence of Arabia [sic], dies aged 81’

Handritten, # 2

Spotted in Spon Street, Coventry, by Just Liam, further evidence of the English language’s cruelty to non-native speakers:

Double-take, # 35

Before we move away from the ‘Celebrate Christmas in Rugby Town Centre’ leaflet (see yesterday’s mangle), here’s a paragraph of delicious tautologies and histrionic publicity, plus a stray comma or two:

Double-take, # 34

The map on this year’s ‘Celebrate Christmas in Rugby Town Centre’ leaflet contains this gem (with adjacent bonus apostrophe catastrophe):

A four-word text box in which two words are variant spellings of the key term is careless. Both OED and Merriam-Webster note that the plural form deers exists, but OED calls its usage ‘occasional’, and its most recent example is dated c. 1817. Merriam-Webster makes no comment on the plural of reindeer; OED states: ‘Plural unchanged, (rare) reindeers [sic]’; and Oxford Dictionaries Online (ODO) British & World English rather tersely offers: ‘(plural same or reindeers)’.

The plural form reindeers is not, therefore, untenable or even inaccurate, but the inconsistency in usage is reprehensible. The more familiar form is used in the leaflet’s third mention of the beasts:

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 26

I’ve noticed before that Dr Faustus is very fond of a catastrophic apostrophe. He’s submitted this one, which he found on the menu of a restaurant in London:

Not Washed or Cooked, # 89

Sound advice. Well, it sounds as if it was supposed to be advice, anyway:

Link: The Times (subscription access only), ‘Troubleshooter: Simply infuriating’

Not Washed or Cooked, # 101

There are certain words that certain professions need to be able to spell. This one pertains to the Christian church:

Link: Blog of Saint Mary Parish, Evanston IL, ‘O Come, O Come, Emmaneul’

Turns out that the writer is Director of Evangelization & Catechesis for the parish. You’d have thought being able spell (or at least spellcheck) Emmanuel would be part of the job description.

Double-take, # 33

An email received by Des Pond of Slough includes an odd phrase:

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 28

Today’s word escaped (as I understand it) from the world of science, and quite often appears in place of its homophone, leading at times to confusion and hilarity:

Link: CNET, ‘Stress-buster: Microsoft bra battles emotional overeating’

discrete for discreet

Not Washed or Cooked, # 88

No link possible for this, which is clipped from one of those ephemeral ‘related interest’ boxes that appear alongside the main article in online newspapers, in this case The Times:*

* ‘Online newspaper’ seems an odd juxtaposition, but it is, apparently, the correct designation.

Problem punctuation, # 8

Some apostrophe-free holidays (the site offers many more):

Link: SantaClausTrips, ‘4 Day [sic] Lapland Holidays’

and an unpunctuated chance to seek (apparently) a Jewish Father Christmas:

Right word, wrong form, # 1

This mangle comes from an email sent by the Civil Service Motoring Association (CSMA):

Collins English Dictionary is unambiguous about the correct form of the past participle of whet:

Link: Collins English Dictionary, ‘whetted’

The entry for ‘whet’ in the online Oxford Dictionaries is identical for British and US usage:

Link: Oxford Dictionaries, US English Dictionary, ‘whet’; British & World English Dictionary, ‘whet’

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 100

Another from the eagle-eyed Bob Godiva:

Link: QuickMeme, ‘While Their Kids Sleep […]’

In fact, Mr Godiva had to alert me to the error (and it isn’t clear why the parents don’t rate an initial capital either), as I was so busy looking at what the parents had done that I entirely missed what was in the heading. Well worth a look.

Not Washed or Cooked, # 87

Another set of seasonal mangles (in order of escalating humour):

Link: Amazon.co.uk, Burl Ives ‘Oh Little Town of Bethelhem’

 Similar issue, better error:

Link: The Observer, Dunkirk, NY, ‘Dunkirk Middle School Holiday Concert Tuesday’

Best in Show goes to a later stanza of the poem/carol featured yesterday:

Link: Praise Unlimited, The River of God; Dave Neufeld, ‘Christmas Time’

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 99

Two Christmassy versions of a mangle featured in November:

Link: MetroLyrics | Susan Boyle, ‘Away In a Manager Lyrics’

Link: Praise Unlimited, The River of God; Dave Neufeld, ‘Christmas Time’

Double-take, # 33

High praise indeed:

Link: The Times (subscription access only), ‘Troubleshooter’ reader’s comment

Not Washed or Cooked, # 86

A Russell Group university adds insult(s) to injury: