Multimangle, # 10

A varied assortment of mangles in this publicity for Chop House, Southampton:

The graphics above are screenshots from a mobile-phone edition of the site, and the main website offers some different mangles from these. Dr Faustus comments: ‘The food is actually decent.’

Burgers Flat Bread Pizza’s I our […] oven; dont for don’t; bellow for below; separete;

Not Washed or Cooked, # 178

Mangling in English and French on this menu, courtesy of Dr Faustus:

Link: The Mill at Sonning, Berkshire (on Menu tab)

vegeatable; Beef Bourguinon; Choclate Mousse

Not Washed or Cooked, # 177

Another excellent find by Dr Faustus, this mangle was on display at the Tudor House, Southampton:

Catherdrals

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 152

This mangle was spotted by Dr Faustus on his tablet:

Dr Faustus comments: ‘I am reminded of Shakespeare in Love where Will (Joseph Fiennes) says to Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush) that he is still owed for “One Gentleman of Verona”!’

The error reappeared (this time courtesy of the smartphone of Dr Faustus) on a listing from the Arts Centre at Warwick University

This is not our first presentation of such mindless reproduction of mangles, and a Google search (which tried hard to correct the error) shows this one, too, being disseminated faithfully:

Not Washed or Cooked, # 176

Des Pond of Slough found this mangle in the online Telegraph:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Islamic State hit by airstrike near Kobane […]’

dramatic frootage

Multimangle, # 9

This came via Dr Faustus, and I’ve left it intact as sent. On the one hand, it’s good to know that a big company is giving its staff praise and feedback (however generalized and vague); on the other, the phrasing and punctuation are poor, and the ‘objective and motto’ — as two nouns, requiring a plural verb — seem to be less than clearly communicated:

The heart of the text is the motto, here erroneously presented as the blended adjective everyday (as in ‘products for everyday use’, where everyday means daily and/or usual) in a place demanding a separate adjective and noun (every day). The apostrophe at the end of the displayed motto is inexplicable.

The content is puzzling, and tends to emphasize that these conferences are a pointless exercise, an expanse of time that must be filled, thus generating meaningless ideas and fake enthusiasm. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need my local Co-op to ‘WOW’ me, or even ‘wow’ me. (What does Head Office have planned?) Exceeding my expectations is not necessary; meeting them, by providing well-stocked shelves and well-trained, friendly and efficient staff, is perfectly adequate.

Exceeding expectations everyday'; &c…

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 57

Another mangled recruitment email, courtesy of Dr Faustus:

In addition to the apostrophe catastrophe, the email has mangled the town’s name which — a quick check on Google confirms — should read Stratford-upon-Avon.

distributor’s for distributors; Stratford Upon Avon

Multimangle, # 8

Des Pond of Slough finds multiple mangles in a Telegraph article:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘“Ghost village” put up for sale in US’

They always say if you remember the 1969s you weren’t there…

This is even better:

The good burgers in question being the McDonalds, presumably.

Finally, there’s this:

Des Pond comments: ‘I have a feeling he meant “eccentric” rather than “eclectic”.’ I have a feeling he’s right.

burgers for burghers; 1969s; eclectic for eccentric

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 151

Dr Faustus finds fault with the Grauniad, not for the first time:

Source: The Guardian, ‘How Cambridge University almost killed me’, smartphone edition, and cf. online

starring for staring

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 63

Dr Faustus has found this almighty clanger in the Homework Help section of eNotes in a response to the question: ‘What is the difference between the A text and B text of Doctor Faustus?’

Link: eNotes, Homework Help, ‘What is the difference between the A text and B text of Doctor Faustus?’

The mangle is presumably associated with the earlier and puzzling reference to ‘plus lines’…

Critical Addition

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 150

Kieron Hayes has sent in this excellent mangle, commenting: ‘I’m assuming that they provide a marker pen for this role’:

The job posting seems to have originated with recruitment agency SF Group (‘seriously focussed on recruitment’), and the copy later provides an illogical shift in perspective (’The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in writing online copy across all platforms. You must have strong editorial and proofreading skills with a highly creative approach with the ability to captivate online audiences’). Investigation reveals that the key error (bogs for blogs) was corrected, but not before being reproduced online (in 27 places, according to Google). The appalling apostrophe catastrophe stands.

I have no idea whether it continues, but it used to be standard practice in some HR companies to rewrite CVs in their house style, sometimes with added errors. Many potential employers, of course, would have no idea that the errors were not the candidate’s own…

writing copy for the website, bogs and social media avenues; companies online marketing strategy

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 62

Pain is not inflicted solely by zombies in what turns out to be the second edition of this novel:

Source: Kristen Middleton, Zombie Games (Origins), 2nd edn e-book (self-published, 2012), p. 126

there for they’re

Not Washed or Cooked, # 175

As I’ve said before, the more sloppy professional use of English spelling and grammar becomes, the easier it is for second-language scammers to be convincing. Today’s example, extracted from a longer email, should be simple to distinguish as a fake, but I’ve seen worse spelling and grammar in correspondence from government agencies and national companies, so that isn’t necessarily a good guide, while the inadequately-taught might not be equipped to spot the difference at all:

cann’t make the delivery of parcel

Not Washed or Cooked, # 174

The spelling on this notice in the women’s ‘facilities’ at Coventry’s Canley Crematorium had not been checked before posting, and the punctuation would benefit from work too:

recepion + punctuation

You Cannot Be Serious, # 28

From the second paragraph of a report on inputting bank details incorrectly:

Link: The Sunday Times (subscription access only), ‘Call to help “fat-fingered” retrieve their lost millions’

What here could possibly suggest that a singular verb form might be appropriate?
Millions of pounds is

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 61

Possible, but improbable:

Source: Zachary Mason, The Lost Books of the Odyssey (London: Vintage, 2011), p. 31

The word seise certainly exists, but, as both Oxford Dictionaries Online and Merriam Webster confirm, it is not a variant spelling of seize, but a legal term meaning ‘to be in possession of’. The context does not entirely preclude this meaning, but strongly suggests that seize (‘to take or lay hold suddenly or forcibly’) is what is intended here.

seise for seize

Not Washed or Cooked, # 173

Spotted in the States by Josh Polchar:

no traspassing

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 149

This extract contains a typographical error resulting in a very odd concept, and a spelling choice that suggests that Ilford has been relocated to the USA:

Link: Ilford Recorder, ‘Forest Gate Couple on Pedal-power Charity Trip to Paris’

The idea of vaccinating against polo is amusing here, but the error would be heinous in the context of a tragedy. The recasting of foetal (with the oe representing the ligature œ, as in fœtal) to fetal is puzzling; both Cambridge Dictionaries Online (CDO) and Merriam Webster, for instance, distinguish the spellings as British and North American variants respectively. Against the logic that suggests fetal should rhyme with metal and petal, CDO offers audio pronunciation guides in which both variants sound the first syllable as a long ‘e’. Yet altering a ligature to a plain vowel sometimes results in a shift in pronunciation, both visually and aurally distancing the word from its etymology. One example is paedophile, which in the USA is spelt pedophile and pronounced in its first syllable to rhyme with fed, not with feed.

polo for polio; fetal for foetal

Not Washed or Cooked, # 172

Dr Faustus found this mangle in an email of offers from TimeOut:

comprehnesive

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 56

It isn’t clear whether the titular mangle and the odd use of comma below are the fault of the recruitment agency or the newspaper staff (probably the former, since such content is presumably copied from material supplied by email), but, as Des Pond of Slough points out, it feels as if something is missing…

Source, Rugby Observer, 2 October, 2014, p. 41, and online

warehouse operative’s; inc,

Double-take, # 107

This oddity from the archive is most likely the result of incomplete and unchecked reordering:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Cyprus bailout cost surges to €23bn’

an €6bn extra

Not Washed or Cooked, # 171

Spotted at Andover Station by Dr Faustus:

Stops to let passengers laeve the train only

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 148

I keep reading about university students complaining about value for money for their fees, but Dr Faustus has found a module that seems to be addressing that issue:

Link: The University of Warwick, EN123 Modern World Literatures

EN123 Modern World Literatures 2014–25

Not Washed or Cooked, # 170

Dr Faustus found this typographical error in a survey:

The final sentence doesn’t read well either, with its cumbersome ‘You are able’ and its superfluous ‘different’.

subect; You are able to add up to 3 different degrees

Double-take, # 106

Spotted on his trawls through ebay by Des Pond of Slough:

Link: ebay.co.uk, ‘Hunter 1/350 W35046 Wood deck HMS Dreadnought for Trumpeter’

Batteship for battleship; & many more

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 60

An old favourite in a new setting:

Source: London Evening Standard, 11 August, 2014, p. 5. Also online

I’d like to believe that this is simply a typographical error (heinous enough), but (as I've said in a previous post) I hear so many people say ‘bought’ when they mean ‘brought’  — though not the other way round so far — that it seems to be a genuine, if incomprehensible, misuse of words. I’ve yet to discover how such people deal with other tenses (‘buy’ for ‘bring’?).

More pertinent here, and what prevents this mangle simply repeating an earlier one, is that the verb seems erroneous: can someone bring a tribunal?

bought for brought

Double-take, # 105

Above a shop in Dunchurch, Warwickshire. Is the middle one especially for American visitors?

[random] off license

Double-take, # 104

From a CSMA email:

This displays simultaneous tautology (‘plus more’) and redundancy (‘plus more’), as well as being meaningless (more what? Adults? Children? Something else entirely?).

plus more

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 147

Presently doing the rounds online are various stylized versions of this text, extracted from a speech made by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and sampled (per The Guardian) on Beyoncé’s ***Flawless. Unfortunately, whoever designed this version (found on Facebook; original source unknown) didn’t proofread it, and it is not flawless…

why do we teach to aspire to marriage

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 59

Another of Pop Spencer’s finds:

Source: The Guardian, 24 September, 2014, p. 14. Link: online version

Pop comments: ‘The old underestimate/overestimate mix up…’
underestimate for overestimate

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 55

Evie McDermott has been to Alton Towers, where she was struck by the absence of apostrophe in the declarative announcement on this sign. Then there’s the completely random use of capital letters…

worlds most intense…; random capitalization