Not Washed or Cooked, # 22

Good to see the Grauniad back on form at the weekend, fighting off competition from the Tolygroff:

Link: Guardian, 'Shopkeeper uses wooden stool to fight off armed robber – video'

Gender Bender or Sex Perplex, # 1

I rather giggled at this:

Link: Daily Telegraph, 'Why I’m waiting to pounce on the first round of divorcees'

once I'd read far enough into the subhead to work out that the headline really meant men.

Then I started wondering and did some research. I was surprised (and not very impressed) to find that the OED lists the word as is, without accents or (as a headword) a specific masculine form:

Link: OED, 'divorcee'

It's notable that three of the four examples of earliest use do show accents and the gender form appropriate to the context. The 'often' in the Etymology section also seems rather disingenuous (is that more or less often than not?), so that it isn't clear whether the OED entry is conflicting with the trend or following it. Chambers 21st Century Dictionary similarly ignores the accents and defines the word as 'someone who has been divorced'.

Checking some other dictionaries suggests that the term seems to cause unnecessary confusion. Collins English Dictionary (that's UK English) lists divorcée, but offers a gender-blurred definition ('a person, esp a woman, who has been divorced')* and an unsolvable circular puzzle in the search for divorcé:

Link: Collins English Dictionary, 'divorcé'

Conversely, the Collins American English Dictionary defines divorceé as 'a divorced woman' and mentions that this usage is specific to US (as opposed to UK) English; however, a search for divorcé results in the identical problem to that found in the Collins English Dictionary.

Merriam-Webster also keeps both the accent and the gender distinction ('a divorced woman'). While it takes some effort to find an entry for divorcé ('a divorced man'), it does exist, beneath noun- and verb-form entries for divorce; although the links to listings for divorcé defined 'for English-language learners' and 'for kids' lead instead to entries for divorce.

I'm aware, of course, that the English are famous for being Bad At Foreign Languages, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that the barrier between divorcé and divorcée has been broken down, or that the acute accent has been lost, however regrettable, or even ridiculous, I might think it. Yet I remain surprised: after all, the English seem to have no difficulty in retaining the accent or gender-specific ending of words relating to the starting point of marriage, fiancé and fiancée.†


* and no full stop to end the abbreviation esp.
† OED, however, includes only the masculine form, noting in its etymology the French feminine form, but not apparently viewing it as appropriate to English usage. Chambers, conversely, includes both terms, distinguishing the definitions by by gender, and helpfully supplying the correct plural forms.

Misplaced Adjectival Clause, # 1

Marc Greene has sent in a contribution which seems well worth quoting verbatim:

Here's a doozy of a misplaced adjectival clause that I found in the first paragraph of 'President's Message' in the February/March issue of Connecticut Lawyer, a glossy bi-monthly from the Connecticut Bar Association (CBA), Volume 23, No. 6, p. 4:

Although the CBA and some its sections or committees will be introducing and lobbying for enactment of certain legislation, far more often the CBA will be lobbying against the passage of bills introduced by various legislators, sometimes merely as a courtesy to their constituents, which are considered by the CBA to be either ill-conceived or poorly executed.

Seems like these these constituents are either bastards or ill-hung.

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 54

A rather odd typographical error on the delivery information page of Chemist-4-U:

Link: Chemist4U

Not Washed or Cooked, # 21

A/B has forwarded this annoying Facebook advertisement that keeps coming up:

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 53

Another example of an old friend (and some of the grammar is dubious too), contributed jointly by Unintended Saucy Humour and Dr Faustus. This is from an academic book which should, of course, have undergone repeated and rigorous checking and proofreading by the chapter's author and the volume's editors (if not by someone at the publishers, since publishers aren't apparently involved in that kind of thing any more):

Source: Teun A. van Dijk, 'Critical Discourse Analysis', in The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen and Heidi E. Hamilton. Malden, MA, & Oxford: Blackwell, 2001, p. 357. Link: Google Books

The checking process is particularly important in this case, since the chapter's author, who is from the Netherlands, is not working in his native tongue.

pubic discourse

You Cannot Be Serious, # 19

Here's a preview of an essay hosted by the subscription service MegaEssays.com:

 Link: MegaEssays.com, 'John Milton'

If you want to 'View the rest of this essay!' (exclamation marks are popular), you have to pay. In case you were wondering, the FAQ page addresses the subject of quality ―

― though it doesn't explain how a subscriber can select the paper best suited to match his or her own abilities. Not, of course, that it's an issue that would ever arise, as this FAQ shows:

 Link: MegaEssays.com, FAQs

There's also a set of Terms and Conditions devolving responsibility for the essays' usage on to the user. Indeed, the testimonials make it clear that the site's essays are intended only to offer students help in formulating their own ideas:

What isn't clear is how the stance on ethics and law ― the Plagiarism Police are watching you! ― fits with the Custom Essays service, which offers bespoke essays, at 'undergraduate' or 'graduate' level, at a cost ranging from $27 to $55 per page, depending on how quickly the material is required.*

* That's USD. The site shows an address in 'Cheyenne, USA' for queries, and the T&C page refers to 'the laws of the State of Ohio'.

Double-take, # 5

Des Pond of Slough has contributed this, from a recent BBC report about lorries being given free access in July to the M6 tollroad:

Link: BBC News, 'Lorries to access M6 toll road for free throughout July'

He commented: 'It’s good to see that long-term planning includes the future...'

You Cannot Be Serious, # 18

Commitments elsewhere mean a week or two of quick-and-dirty mini-mangles, freed at last from languishing in the archives awaiting their moment. Today's dates back to February, and is a truly Best in Class typographical error from the Tolygriph Tilygroff Tallygruff, reproducing the words (but surely not the spelling) of Mary Creagh, Member of Parliament for Wakefield and Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

 

Link: Daily Telegraph, 'Eating beef is safe…'

There's a very odd use of commas too… Mind you, things weren't looking good from the outset, given the problem in the report's title:

The til needs a leading apostrophe to be a valid alternative to till or until…

Adjectival Confusion, # 1

A contribution from Dr the Homie Smith inaugurates a new category of mangle, Adjectival Confusion:

 

Link: Guardian, 'Portrait of a Pacifist…'

You Cannot Be Serious, # 17

This one's been waiting for a free slot since February. The report is called 'School caterers "confident" about meat supplies', but the quotation doesn't really back that up:

Link: BBC News, 'School caterers "confident"…'

Hmm… probably the best certainty in the world?

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 52

Today, a hardy perennial:

Link: Waitrose.com, Taste of London competition (access via login only)

Mangling Meaning, # 6

This piece from last Saturday's online Coventry Telegraph rather needed some grammar, punctuation, editing and proofreading. It's not clear whether (or how much of) the mangling is original to the quotation or as filtered by the writer…

 Link: Coventry Telegraph, 'Families furious after double yellow lines painted outside homes'

Mangling Meaning, # 5

Today's bit of balderdash has been sent in by Dr Faustus, who comments: 'It's an important article, but the sub-heading is unfortunately all over the proverbial shop.' Isn't it just!

Link: Science Recorder, 'NOAA: Artic will be free of ice…'

The title seems not to be conveying the intended message either, since the phrase 'to be free of' refers to something with a beneficial effect,* rather than something that is a problem…

* OED, free, adj., n., and adv., A.II.9.c: 'Clear of something which is regarded as objectionable or problematic. With of, from.' Cf. Merriam-Webster, free, adjective, 3.a.: 'relieved from or lacking something and especially something unpleasant or burdensome.'

Mangling Meaning, # 4

There's been much mangling of meaning by the media recently. Today's almost indecipherable example, which combines general balderdash with syntactically unviable quotations and some USA spelling, comes from last Sunday's online Telegraph:

Link: The Telegraph, 'Financial crisis caused by too many bankers taking cocaine…'

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 4

Today's mangle comes to us from new contributor, Ms Mondegreen:

Link: The Independent, flower for flour

 
There may be a parapraxis (Freudian slip) at work here, since the author is one Daisy Wyatt…

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 51

Dr Faustus sent in this example, from the BBC News site, of an error that's becoming a commonplace:

Link: BBC News, fisherman for fishermen

Not Washed or Cooked, # 20

It was going well on Thursday while The Independent was using the abbreviation in the report 'Popular porn websites "host adverts with malware"'. Then it all went horribly wrong…

Link: The Independent, 'pornagraphy'

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 50

There are, as you'd imagine, many examples on the Internet and elsewhere of today's mangle, so it's been hard to select the definitive one. This is it, though. It's from PrintedTree Publishing (or possibly Printedtree Publishing: the text on the header and body on the company's website diverge on this point). A company that demonstrably disapproves of hyphens, its products include 'Company specific prewritten business plan samples for start-up and existing businesses'.

Link: PrintedTree Publishing, How To Write A Judo Marital Arts School Business Plan

We can assume from this that preparing prepared business plans doesn't include attention to detail, such as proofreading, although, as the word is wrong every time it occurs, there may be some copy-and-paste action.

This is the runner up, with the definition exactly as it appears on the webpage, ellipsis and all:

Link: USA Martial Arts New York, Olympic Tae Kwon Do

Whoever wrote it has better English than I'll ever have Korean, but still: 'hand…' what? Fasting? Writing? Shaking? Bags at dawn? Something more explicit?

Singular or plural? # 3

The grammar in these paragraphs, from the Android version of a BBC report published earlier this week, became more confused as the text continued:

The online version shows the correct form of the verb to harmonize with 'formula' in the first paragraph, but it's still not clear how the pronoun 'them' is supposed to function in the second paragraph:

Link: BBC News, 'Baby milk rationed…'

Singular or plural? # 2

This one's been superceded as mangle of the day a couple of times, but its moment has finally come.

 Link: The Independent, Owen Jones, '"reforms" … is'

Recent reading suggests that we're likely quite soon to be having a lot of examples of verbs not agreeing in number.

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 49

This little gem was going the rounds on Facebook not long ago (and probably still is, that being the nature of the beast). It's found on the Internet in various versions, some of them spelt correctly. This version isn't (this is Mangling English: if you want a version that's spelt correctly, you'll need to go elsewhere…), though I'm not sure whether the site linked below is where it originated or not.

Leaving aside the oddities produced by the abbreviated style, the last piece of 'advice' has clearly not been subject to any kind of spell-checking or proofreading routine:

Link: DateHookUp.com, 'Health Tips,care to share?'

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 48

This book featured on 26 March, and I wondered whether more mangles would occur. This is unusual:

Link: Amazon.co.uk, L. J. Charles, A Touch of Ice (p. 202)

OED observes that glassier was one of several spelling variants for glazier in Middle English, although the sole example listed shows it used as an alternative to glazer, meaning a polishing tool or wheel, in 1688. I checked glassier in Merriam-Webster in case it was a usage specific to the USA, but it occurs only as a comparative form under the entry glassy.

Not Washed or Cooked, # 19

We addressed the order of e and i in December, but here it is again, and not for the last time.

Today's example, provided by Dr Faustus, offers a discount off a text that we can only hope was spell-checked and proofread before it was published by this 'independent media company and nexus of travel culture worldwide', now moving into book publication:

 Link: Matador, No Foreign Lands

Oddly, the page now has a popup repeating the promotion information, but this time correctly spelt:

There's quite a lot of material in the How to Write sections on the site; this covers travel writing, dealing with editors, finding a voice, and other useful issues, but I could find nothing on using a spell-checker or proofreading. Maybe you only get that if you enroll on the 'travel writing course from MatadorU'. (That's 'U' as in University.)

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 7

No, Daily Telegraph staff, you can't simply miss out some words from the headline so it fits on the News Index page and assume the grammar will still work, as is clearly shown when you start with this:

 
Link: Daily Telegraph, '"lifestyles" like those of the Philpotts'

and cut it down to this:

Not Washed or Cooked, # 18

Packaging designers at Boots Pharmaceuticals seem to lack concensus on how to spell a key word:

Not Washed or Cooked, # 17

Des Pond of Slough provides this puzzle from the BBC's Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home:

Temporary link: BBC iPlayer: Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home at 13 mins, 44 secs

His annotation reads: 'immunity? impunity? incompetence?'
immunty

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 47

Dr Faustus has spotted problems in the Guardian's reporting of the Philpotts' conviction, notably this error which, as he says, is particularly insensitive and should have been found and corrected before publication:

 Link: Guardian, 'once child'

Dr Faustus also observes that the use of quotation marks in paragraph 18 is 'very strange'.

Indeed, the piece seems to have been rushed into publication. The story was co-written and two voices/styles of writing can be clearly discerned. The responsibility for proofreading, of course, falls to both writers, but seems to have been carried out by neither. There are further issues, such as the failure to hyphenate grief-stricken, and the inclusion of this largely unintelligible paragraph:

Even when the missing comma from the first line has been mentally inserted, and the superfluous comma in the final line removed, the meaning remains ambiguous. Did Cotterill say it 'days after the fire' or was it Philpott's behaviour that was suspicious 'days after the fire'?

This is an excellent example of the confusion that results when the relative pronoun that is not used to mark the beginning of a relative clause, but simply implied, an unattractive modern habit that often forces a reader to reread material for sense, since no indication is supplied of what kind of syntactical structure is ahead or how it relates to the previous part of the sentence. Put more simply, readers need to know what will happen next grammatically, and how it relates to what has come before, so they can understand as they read.

The 'implied' pronoun is known as a zero relative pronoun, while the clause it (doesn't) introduce is known as a zero clause or contact clause. There is some debate about the status of that when introducing a subordinate clause: is it a relative pronoun in this case or a subordinating conjunction?

With the greatest respect to the grammarians, surely a more pressing point is the lack of clarity. The above example shows exactly why the practice is not conducive to clear communication. Inserting that after 'said' would make it clear that 'days after the fire' referred to when Philpott's behaviour was suspicious; conversely, placing that before 'Philpott' shows that Cotterill made the comments 'days after the fire' ― a fairly significant difference.

In both cases, flagging the grammatical relationship of what is to follow helps the reader to grasp the content's meaning quickly. As it is, without a that in either position, the sentence is a mess and it is impossible to conclude what is meant.

Direct speech versus reported speech

Link (available to Facebook members only): Facebook, Jessica.Rockz

I hate it when people put reported speech in quotation marks as though it were direct speech. I wonder if any of the thousands who 'liked' or discussed the page actually noticed the grammatical idiocy…

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 46

The Liverpool Echo offering a reminder that when your text contains words that definitely won't be in a spell-checker, you still need to use one, and to proofread, to check the other words:

 Link: Liverpool Echo, 'a Wacker Quacker, eventualy became fully submerged'