Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 45

A little extra one for Easter.

The Wiki site Answers.com seems to contain a lot of very basic questions marked by incorrect spelling and capitalization. Here's a topical exchange from the site:

Link: Answers.com, 'What do christians celerbrate on ester Sunday?'

The answer isn't much better, and contains a major grammatical ouch:

The type of errors in presentation on the site sometimes make me wonder if the entries have been fabricated, but then I'm a tad cynical…

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 44

Facebook posted this on my timeline yesterday:

When I clicked through to the article, the Independent had corrected it…

Double-take, # 4

Bob Godiva has contributed this barely credible example of Chrome shooting itself in the foot (which I've edited slightly so the text can be seen more easily):

Late last month, in the Google Chrome Blog, someone styling herself 'Rachel Petterson, Software Engineer and Savvy Speller' announced the browser's new spell-checking tool. The post's URL and title make it clear that the misspelling is deliberate:

Link: Google Chrome Blog, 'Bettar spell chek in Chrome'

The Chrome team clearly assumes that users of its browser will instantly understand 'bettar spell chek' as intentional and that they all have a similar sense of humour.* However, various comments across the Internet show that not everyone does appreciate that these 'errors' are deliberate and/or intended to be amusing. Some people have castigated Chrome for carelessness. Some noticed only the 'bettar', not the 'chek', and thus didn't realize it was deliberate. In one exchange on a Google productforums page last Wednesday, someone promised to pass a user's irate complaint 'onto the correct team', and thus appeared to be a Google employee who had missed the point.‡

Unsurprisingly, the joke doesn't travel very well across cultures. Although Petterson's announcement specifically refers to support for non-English languages, the Chrome team seems unaware of the inherent issues in dealing with a multinational audience: for instance, you have to be fairly advanced in a foreign language to recognize and appreciate grammatical jokes.

Perhaps it would have been more obvious had the Chrome team misspelt spell as well; but, in the context of the widespread laxity in spelling and presentation on and off the Internet, the tag simply seems ill-judged.

* Also perhaps that they will avidly be reading every blog post ― who has the time?

‡ An exchange on a different Google productforums page two days later suggests that he has had it explained it to him and been put in charge of explaining it to other people…

Not Washed or Cooked, # 16

The Pope's homily at the Holy Thursday Mass of the Chrism yesterday was reproduced by the online Catholic Herald. The preamble ― presumably not written by Pope Francis, even though he alone is credited in the byline ― offered a summary and a duplicated mangle:

Link: Catholic Herald, 'Pope Francis: Self-help Courses Can Turn Catholics into Pelagians'

Spellchecking and proofreading are clearly not encouraged at the Catholic Herald. There's also a failure to harmonize quotations from the homily, resulting in a confused final paragraph:

Since 'Pope' is the only singular noun preceding the pronoun, the comment implies that some priests may become dissatisfied by the Pope's negative qualities…

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 43

This review from PC Advisor, contributed by Ben Flaze, demonstrates an arbitrary usage of its and it's. The texts starts well enough:

Link: PC Advisor, 'Samsung Galaxy S4 vs Galaxy S3 comparison review'

and it's clear the writer knows the difference between its and it's:

However, through much of the article, it's and its are used randomly:

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 3

Let's hope the rest of this:

Link: Amazon.co.uk, Collins Gem French Phrasebook for Kindle

is better proofread than this page:

Link: Amazon.co.uk, Collins Gem French Phrasebook for Kindle, 'Look Inside'

There seems to be no copyright page in the Kindle version, but the information on the Amazon page identifies this as the third edition of 2011. The 'Pronouncing' section is actually what loads when you click on 'Look Inside' (try it via the link above, and wait for a moment or two for it to load the main page and the the 'Look Inside' popup), so someone should have noticed ― and corrected ― it by now. Shame on you, Collins Gem!

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 42

Today's mangle is taken from a book which is rather dogged by typographical errors:

 Link: Amazon.co.uk, L. J. Charles, A Touch of Ice (p. 12)

Refection, of course, is connected with refreshment and nourishment, so this unfortunate error might (depending on the reader) evoke anything from an image of nail-nibbling to a much less innocent suggestion of autoeroticism performed by someone extremely flexible…Either way, it should have been proofread out of the text before publication.

You Cannot Be Serious, # 16

The Rugby Observer really needs to start using hyphens:

Link: Rugby Observer, 'paedophile hunting vigilante'

You Cannot Be Serious, # 15

Last week's Rugby Observer surpassed itself with ambiguous headlines. Today, we'll feature this one:

Link: Rugby Observer, 'Teen sex website hailed a success'

In case you're wondering, the website is actually offering information about sex and relationships to teenagers…

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 2

After a couple of months' contemplation, I still can't decide whether this is accidental or deliberate:

Even with the 'well' removed, or allowed through as innocent, the tagline makes little sense…

Not Washed or Cooked, # 15

I've been thinking on and off about Sky television's interface and its content. While the programme summaries are sometimes a little strange, they tend not to include errors of grammar or spelling. I don't know where or how the information is derived or sourced, but I'm assuming some kind of database is involved, and a little research suggests that databases either come with spell-checking code built in (such as Microsoft's Access) or can have code written in or added to check the spelling of input text (as for MySQL).

Presumably, the BBC uses a different method to compile data for its iPlayer. It would seem that either the system lacks spell-checking functionality or that the instructions to the BBC's operators do not incorporate a routine for editing, checking and proofreading:

The episode is actually called (as one might expect):

It's especially heinous to have errors published in material for children: not only can erroneous spellings too easily be learnt, but it's also communicating the message that bad habits, such as carelessness, are acceptable.

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 6

Bob Godiva contributed today's mangle, which had done the rounds in 2007 from the point of view of its unfortunate ambiguity, although no-one seems to have considered its appalling grammar or how that added to the ambiguity problem:

It's an issue that appears to arise with the informal, but sadly ubiquitous, term kids,* as this example from the bet-hedging Walmart rather emphasizes:

 Link: Walmart, kid's or kids'?

The term children, conversely, can be given a possessive apostrophe easily and accurately, as shown on the Constructive Playthings website:

Perhaps Kohl's, whose name suggests appreciation of the importance of apostrophes, should have chosen the more formal term in order to avoid inconsistency, a grammatical error and, given the grammatical issues, what turns into a potentially ambiguous statement:‡

Link: Kohl's, 'kids clothes'

Many, many more examples exist…

 * The OED finds this term in use in English as early as 1642, and notes that it was 'Originally low slang, but by the 19th c. frequent in familiar speech'. In the early nineteenth century, it was also used 'In low sporting or criminal circles [as a] term of admiration for an expert young thief, pugilist, etc.' In the UK, goat occurs in various metaphors, most of which relate to being foolish or behaving foolishly, which makes the ubiquity of kids even more puzzling.

‡ Let's ignore the syntactical illogicality of the product-type listing beneath 'expect great things'. 

Note: since the starting point, Target, is a firm operating in the USA, all of today's examples come from North American sources. This is not to say that firms in the United Kingdom or in other English-speaking places couldn't easily supply examples just as good/bad…

Singular or plural? # 1

Yesterday brought a double boob from the Beeb:*

Cf. BBC, 'criteria that determine […] protects'

The issue here is criteria, which is, of course, the plural form of criterion. To agree in number, as English verbs are expected to do, the related verb forms should be plural, i.e. 'the criteria that determine […] protect'.

This is not an uncommon error, but a reader might expect — and certainly deserves, given both how the corporation is funded and its extensive educational output — better from the Beeb. (It may be that this instance of the error originated in material intended for use by the media, published or supplied by a governmental department; but the government's stance is reported rather than quoted, so responsibility in the above example remains with the BBC's writer.

The BBC's journalists might try reading some of the educational material provided by their employer. The difference between criterion and criteria is certainly understood by the compiler of the BBC's Welsh online dictionary, for instance.

* The screenshot detail comes from the Android edition, but the error is reproduced on the linked webpage.

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 5

Spotted in the Rugby branch of The Range this morning:

iPod's, but iPhones? Why not iPod's and iPhone's? Or even iPods and iPhones? At least be consistent!

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 41

The Daily Telegraph webpage shows a different version of this Android posting from Wednesday:

It's not clear whether this is a typographical error or whether the term was unfamiliar to the writer; but the linked blogpost seems (the posted is dated, but not timestamped) to have spelt it correctly from the outset…

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 40

Link: Amazon.co.uk, Ealing Studios Collection, Vol. 1

Oh dear: accuracy levels down to 50%…

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 39

Bob Godiva has sent in this little gem, from the back of Browns* in Coventry:

* Sic, before anyone says anything! Whatever the Coventry Telegraph might write in its headline and story (and, indeed, might justifiably suppose to be correct), the picture of the bar it has published shows no apostrophe.

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 38

Although I was a dab hand at calligraphy in the days before computers, I learnt early that I wasn't going to be someone who could draw. Most of the time I don't think about it; but I do wish I could do an illustration for today's mangle:

 Link: Robin Allen, If You Can't Stand the Heat (on Google Books)

The same error appears a couple more times in the book, but someone appears to have pointed it out to the author who, in the sequel, uses the term awning. Pity no-one noticed before it was published…

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 37

After a couple of days off, one of the best/worst mangles we've had, supplied by . For reasons that will become obvious, I've made it as anonymous as I can without losing the point of it.

As some readers are aware, there have been occasional discussions on Facebook about whether any of this ― spelling correctly, checking for errors, using the right word ― matters at all, or even whether it should matter. As I've said before, and will doubtless say again, one thing that particularly incenses me is when someone's failure to think, check and/or proofread results in a piece of text that is unintentionally and inappropriately humorous. This provokes amusement in the reader, who has been manoeuvred into involuntarily laughing at others' woe.

It's heinous when the text has been published by someone who is paid for producing it, whether this be a professional writer responsible for creating the content, or an inputter or typist, whose job is to transmit others' words.

So, anyone who thinks it doesn't matter, read this:

Imagine the feelings of the people who paid for the privilege of having this in memoriam notice unforgivably mangled by a newspaper-office employee who couldn't be bothered to check it properly.

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 4

This is the footer from the homepage of the English version of 'the official website of the Parc Asterix':*

Link: Parc Asterix, English

I wish there'd been a character called Grammatix to evoke at this moment!

* Shouldn't that be Astérix? If you're a fan, have a look round the site; I don't know if there are more errors, but there's some interesting content, including pages on translations of the stories, though not enough have their own pages (Hebrew, Latin, Greek variants, Creole variants, and Picard do) if it's true that the books have been translated into more than 107 languages and dialects― more examples, please!

Double-take, # 3

The internet and media are excited by advances that offer 3D and even 4D printing methods, but the final option in this survey question suggests that Argos is well ahead of the technological companies:

'To […] touch the product'? Really?

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 36

In amongst the mix-and-match of media I graze on, I used to buy and read The Times and The Sunday Times fairly often, until they started charging for the online versions, and I gave them up as a matter of principle.

However, as newspapers sometimes feature in the blog, I'd been wondering whether I should give the Times family the option to be included to maintain the balance; so I started to investigate the options. They were not impressive.

Bad

This is from the page where Times Newspapers Ltd sets out its wares:

 

 Link: Times Newspapers Ltd, subscriptions

Forty-three words, one unchecked typographical error and one misplaced comma: not a good score.

Badder

A read through yesterday's Sunday Times shows that misplaced commas are popular; perhaps it's a house style. There's an absent comma that the editor of the Letters page should certainly have inserted to prevent inappropriate hilarity arising when reading a sad missive on a serious topic. (In the interests of taste, I haven't harvested it or included it here.) It made me wonder, not for the first time, what exactly editors do these days. Even Wikipedia (citing the work of Alexander Mamishev and Sean Williams) accurately states that 

Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete work.

Key aspects are correctness and accuracy, which are frequently missing from the news media.

Baddest*

Yesterday's Sunday Times also published three corrections (reproduced here from p. 28 of the physical newspaper; the various errors had not made me rush to enter my credit card details to secure digital access…):

All three are details that could, and definitely should, have been verified before publication.

Overall, not very impressive, and I've read only the main newspaper so far. Going back to the products page, it's not even clear whether the delivered newspapers are put through the letterbox; the Sunday Times is now so huge that it seems scarcely possible. As we've seen, the weekly and Sunday papers are taken to 'you door', but the Times Literary Supplement, although much thinner than its Sunday relative, doesn't make it that far:**

Soggy supplement, anyone?

*Bad, usually spelt badde, badder and baddest were the medieval precursors of the modern bad, worse and worst. (See that great resource, the Middle English Dictionary, hosted by the University of Michigan, under badde.)

** It is, though, much more professional in its use of punctuation.

You Cannot Be Serious, # 14

This is a screenprint of a video thumbnail preview of an online ITN News story from early last month. Grammatically, the caption is decidedly imprecise:  

 Link: ITN News, 'naked bullfighting protest'

The syntax used makes it appear that the protest is against naked bullfighting, a pastime that rather makes the mind boggle.* A simple alteration to the word order ― Naked protest against bullfighting ― would resolve this and still let ITN position the word naked prominently.

However, naked is a problem here, since the protester at the front is clearly not naked. Thus there's inaccuracy as well as imprecision in the caption. Further investigation reveals that the protesters, animal rights supporters in Mexico, never intended to remove their underwear…

* Mindboggling or not, it is a fact that some people do take all their clothes off to do bullfighting. Famously, or perhaps notoriously, there's some nude bullfighting in the Spanish film Jamón Jamón (1992), although apparently the scene takes place at night, so it's impossible to tell. If you're desperate, YouTube has some video footage of an almost naked bloke (he's wearing trainers and socks) trying simultanously to avoid being knocked down by a bull (he fails) and to hide his bits behind a red cape.

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 1

A pet peeve:

Link: Vitality Gym & Health Club, 'bought onto'

It's a puzzle how anyone can mix up bought (from buy) with brought (from bring), but it's a surprisingly widespread error. (I'm not sure whether there's a variant that has brought for bought.) If it occured only in writing, it could be seen as an uncorrected typographical slip; but it often occurs in speech too, so it seems that those who make the mistake do so in the belief that they are using the correct word.

The error is an example of acyrologia, which the excellent website Silva Rhetoricæ (The Forest of Rhetoric) defines as

An incorrect use of words, especially the use of words that sound alike but are far in meaning from the speaker's intentions.

There is an English version of the term: acyrology. The OED, noting that the word is rarely used after the seventeenth century, defines it simply as

Incorrect use of language.

Now there's a word that deserves to be brought — or perhaps bought — back into regular usage.

You Cannot Be Serious, # 13

Quite apart from the rather stilted phrasing of questions 2 and 3 in this software exit survey, no-one bothered checking the option names:

Link: Copernic Uninstall Survey