Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 35

This photograph, which seems to have first occurred online in April 2012 (possibly here), has been doing the rounds on Facebook and the wider web. It seems always to have gone under the title 'Fred Flintstone was Here', but without being directly captioned; and it might have been better for it to remain uncaptioned…

You Cannot Be Serious, # 12

Today's many-in-one mangle is contributed by Dr Faustus. Here's a plea from the London Dungeon:

Link: The London Dungeon, ' Henry VIII Infographic'

'Please share our infographic' is the request, and it would be churlish of us to refuse them. Here's the whole infographic, and below it are some selected mangles:

On its own, this would win the infographic a place in Apostrophe Catastrophe:

Arguably, however, there's a more heinous error:

Hmm: under 6½ inches tall, and yet weighing in at 300-320 pounds (that's approximately 21 stones or, for the metrically-minded, about 136 kilograms).

It's not apparent whether this idiocy was home-grown or taken from one of the high-quality resources credited:

You Cannot Be Serious, # 11

A bit of a (meat)balls-up from yesterday's Tolygriph:

Link: The Telegraph, 'Ikea meatballs'

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 34

Continuing the rock music thread with the title of an an album, and a film, by The Who which seems to have caused widespread problems. The title isn't, of course, in a standard spellchecker, but it is clearly printed (as you can see in one of the screenshots below) in block capitals four times on the front cover of the album, so there's not much excuse for misspelling it.

Here are half a dozen examples offering two variations on the album/film title theme, and one other hideous error:

Link: Belfast Newsletter, 'Quadrophenia'

 Link: OvationShop, 'Quadrophenia'

  

 Link: AskMenUK, 'Quadraphenia'

 

Link: MusicStack, 'Quadraphenia'

Link: Guitar International, 'Quadraphenia'

 

 Link: DC Media Talk, 'Quadraphenia'

Robert Dultrey?

Not Washed or Cooked, # 14

Sticking with yesterday's rock legend theme, this attempt from the BBC is presumably the Welsh spelling:

Link: BBC, 'Led Zepellin'

Not Washed or Cooked, # 13

Today's mangle is from the world of rock:

Appalling presentation from a well-known and long-established book publisher: Pan. The spelling is correct on the cover of the book, as shown not far to the left of the offending error… 

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 33

Something went wrong in some sections of The Guardian's report earlier this week on the problems of obese NHS patients:

The confused use of quotation marks doesn't help to clarify what is already a rather confused quotation. More issues arise later:

  Link: The Guardian, 'NHS … obese patients'

A little editing and proofreading might have been useful.

 

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 32

Des Pond of Slough has sent this example of over-enthusiastic, or possibly old-fashioned, punctuation, seen in the final paragraph here and echoed in the caption:

Link: BBC News, 'non-descript'

It's quite hard to resist the temptation to wonder why a Chinese military group is congregating on the doorstep of the building (it conjures up a wonderful image), and to consider how this might compromise the secrecy of its secretive exploits; but the issue here is non-descript, another of those peculiarities that a spellchecker is unlikely to identify. For instance, neither Word nor WordPerfect flagged it as problematic, though Blogger highlighted descript as an error.*

Nondescript is treated as a single, unhyphenated word in Merriam-Webster (MW) and in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), whose most recent example with a hyphen is from 1823. 

The 'non-descript building' and its doorstep appeared early on 19 February, but didn't make it though to later updates of the report.

Descript
Descript seems not to have been very popular; MW briefly defines the word and calls it 'archaic', while OED lists its last usage as 1863.

However, it does turn up in the lyrics of 'The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows' (2004) by New York rock band Brand New:

Reports of lover's tryst.
Were neither clear nor descript.

It also appears in a themed poem attributed to one J. H. Parker (here reproduced from the 'Schott's Vocab' section of The New York Times), which might appeal to manglers:

A Very Descript Man

I am such a dolent man,
I eptly work each day;
My acts are all becilic,
I've just ane things to say.

My nerves are strung, my hair is kempt,
I'm gusting and I'm span:
I look with dain on everyone
And am a pudent man.

I travel cognito and make
A delible impression:
I overcome a slight chalance,
With gruntled self-possession.

My dignation would be great
If I should digent be:
I trust my vagance will bring
An astrous life for me.

* It also highlighted Blogger…

Not Washed or Cooked, # 12

Today brings a first contribution — which seems to require no comment — from Dr the Homie Smith:

Link: jobs.ac.uk, 'Senior Lecturer in Medicval English Literature'

Handritten, # 1

This notice, complete with a possible parapraxis (Freudian slip), was supplied by Bob Godiva:

I'm guessing that the writer's first language isn't English, in which case kudos for making a notice that's actually perfectly comprehensible despite being badly spelt. 

There seems to be less excuse for the spelling in this one, since the writer appears to be home-grown:

Not Washed or Cooked, # 11

Takeway menus are often not spellchecked or proofread, resulting in oddities like this:

Not the end of the world: if you like Butter Chicken Tikka, you'll recognize it here.

However, given the recent and continuing revelations regarding British food, it might be wise for curry houses to start being very specific about their ingredients if they are hoping to attract and keep customers:

The examples above come from the menu of a takeway that's opening for business today. Given the fact that some food outlets seem to be suffering from the fallout,* it would probably have been wise to be less vague. Errors like this don't inspire confidence either:

Or do they? Perhaps it's blatant honesty.


* See, for instance, the reports in Modern Farmer, Big Hospitality, and the London Evening Standard.

Mangling Meaning, # 3

This is from the Android edition; both headline and text were also originally online, but have been changed on the main BBC News website… Still available on several other pages, though, such as 5Live.

The first paragraph soon loses its connexion to comprehensible prose, while the screamer is ambiguous to the extent of provoking inappropriate humour. Indeed, the headline seems more suited to the tabloid media: is the BBC repositioning itself?

Mangling Meaning, # 2

The Rugby & Lutterworth Observer seems not to understand the point:

Link: Rugby Observer, 'No horsemeat on school menus'

If horse were 'on the menu', it wouldn't be a problem: it's not illegal and eating it would be an active choice. The issue is, in fact, exactly that it's not listed 'on the menu',* so no-one was aware it was in the food on offer — and that is illegal.

* Definition of 'menu' from the Oxford English Dictionary:

II. Senses relating to a list or schedule. 2. a. A list of the dishes to be served at a meal, or which are available in a restaurant, etc.; a card on which such a list is written or printed, a bill of fare. Also: the food available or to be served at a meal or in a restaurant.

You Cannot Be Serious, # 10

Another price drop sent in by John Holloway. This poster was on display in Currys, Macclesfield, last Saturday.

It's certainly a useful reminder that it's not just words that need checking; though (cynically) I wonder if this is silliness, a genuine error, or Curry's trying-it-on…

Not Washed or Cooked, # 10

In addition to the early-Lent mangles Lent (see the entries for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week), this month offer other opportunities. This one is courtesy of Bob Godiva:

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 31

After Shove tusday comes…

Link: CollegeNET, 'Ash Wensday'

How do you get to college age without being able to spell the days of the week? This one's even worse: a bookseller!

Link: abebooks.co.uk, 'Ash Wensday'

Definitely not four out of five for spelling, though it's an excellent deal on the shipping cost. This next one has both the VHS cover and the video to hand, but still spells it wrong:

Link: ebay, 'Ash Wensday'

Wonder if it was sold… Maybe the college student or the bookseller went searching for the film.

Not Washed or Cooked, # 9

Here's a variation on the problematic Pancake Day thread begun yesterday:

Link: ebay, 'cock-throwing: Shrove tusday'

The mangled 'tusday' is almost lost in the general weirdness of this entry. What is cock-throwing? What does it have to do with Shrove Tuesday (or tusday)? In what way is it religious? The curious manglereader can find the (not very pleasant) answers on the 'Shrove Tuesday' page at Sacred-texts.com, which also includes a section on 'Tossing the Pancake'.

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 30

It's Pancake Day tomorrow, so today kicks off a short seasonal run. Some of you might want to go on this day out:

Link: FamilyFriendlyFun.co.uk, 'Shove Tuesday'

Perhaps not, though: it doesn't really sound very friendly at all.

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 29

From an article on global food waste:

Link: Geoffrey Lean, The Telegraph, 'Young Briton…'

Pets? Really?

Double-take, # 2

Quite an amusing juxtaposition:

Link: Coventry Telegraph, 'Drug dealing … bushes'

Mangling Meaning, # 1

Headlines seem to have become more idiotic than ever. These are variations on a theme that featured across much of the UK media yesterday:

Link: Independent, '100 per cent'

 Link: Birmingham Post, '100 per cent'

Link: SkyNews, '100 per cent'

Link: Daily Mail, '100 per cent'

(Android edition)

Most of the offenders made matters plain (100% of the meat content) in the subheadings, but some simply compounded the idiocy:

 Link: Daily Telegraph, '100 per cent'

4News abandoned the percentages altogether:

 

 Link: 4News, '100 percent'

Since the product in question was supposed to be lasagne, you'd have thought someone would have noticed the lack of pasta, cheese and tomatoes a lot sooner.

You Cannot Be Serious, # 8

Today, John Holloway's third offering (for now…); this puzzler was spotted in Waitrose, Canary Wharf:

Double-take, # 1

Have it while it's red-hot off the press (or whatever the online equivalent is):

Link: Guardian, 'doctorate for plagiarism'

Not Washed or Cooked, # 8

It's difficult to decide which thread today's mangles best fit — all of them, perhaps…

The second of three guest contributions by John Holloway begins with a rather unexpected instruction (perhaps even two) from the Metropolian Police:

It doesn't get any better when you read on:

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 3

Today's twin mangles were contributed by John Holloway.

John says that Tesco in Lee Mill, Devon, put up these signs after complaints about the previous signage, which indicated the location of 'CONFECTIONARY'.