Saturday 25 June 2016

Friday 24 June 2016

Double-take, # 247

At a time when every online report and article must be illustrated, however unpictorial the subject, here is a recent (and mangled) attempt to represent visually the news report ‘Sheffield Posties to Go on Strike this Weekend’:

Link: The Star (Sheffield)
caption (& picture of a hand) ‘posting many letters to red british [sic] postbox on street’, illustrating postal workers strike

Thursday 23 June 2016

Not Washed or Cooked, # 313

Someone recommended to me The Disappearance, an eight-part French thriller shown on BBC4. The subtitles came with a glaring mangle:

Epiosde

Wednesday 22 June 2016

Double-take, # 246

What a difference a hyphen can — or would — make!

Link: North Devon Journal
Pram pushing Barnstaple mother ‘so drunk she couldn't stand’

Tuesday 21 June 2016

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 232

‘CitizenChip’, who might well hide behind a pseudonym, has mistaken the prepositional verb crack down on for the noun crackdown, both of which take the preposition on, and follows this up with some dubious syntax and a typographical error:

Link: GloucestershireLive
crack down for crackdown; of for on; area for area; [syntax]

Sunday 19 June 2016

Multimangle, # 55

Another unsolicited email, with a rather naive subject line, from the inbox of Dr Faustus:

write you; no for not; 30mins; if you have interest in know what the job entails [omitted articles; comma splices]

Saturday 18 June 2016

Double-take, # 244

It isn’t clear whether the mangle in this breadcrumb, leading to a report whose headline uses the correct word, is typographical or grammatical, but its first word is definitely not a noun:

Link: Hereford Times, ‘Hereford Teenager Jailed for Online Sex Offences’
Teenage jailed

Friday 17 June 2016

Double-take, # 243

A mangled headline precedes and presages further mangling. In fact, the adverb in the report’s first paragraph, flagged by red text, is included as a variant form by Merriam-Webster, though not by British-English dictionaries. The report’s second paragraph is included here only to add colour:

Link: Daily Record and Sunday Mail
Colvend women accident sets fire; accidently

Wednesday 15 June 2016

Tuesday 14 June 2016

Double-take, # 242

As Mo Juste points out, ‘This does rather sound like a large and dangerous bag is at large.’ It is hard to see how the bag is significant enough to feature in the headline at all, much less in prime position (it appears near the end of the report, as part of a description of the miscreant), but, as it stands, a hyphen might improve matters:

Link: Northampton Chronicle & Echo
Hessian bag carrying man sexually assaulted woman

Monday 13 June 2016

Double-take, # 241

The mangles are bad enough, but given that Paris was submerged at the time (3 June, 2016) and the Louvre was sending key pieces offsite for safety, the verb ‘flood’ seems ill-chosen:

Link: Mirrorspectrum, ‘Media Blackout As France Witnesses Biggest Revolution in 200 Years’
protestor for protestors; The first collaborative protest against the Socialist government since Hollande came to power in 2012, kicked off on 9 March

Saturday 11 June 2016

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 116

Via Tim Matter, an apostrophe catastrophe on the menu of The Countryman in Staverton. As the second screenshot shows, the pub’s website also has mangled apostrophes, while an adjacent date suggests that review/update schedules are being ignored:


Link: The Countryman, ‘Food’
Taylors, coffee's; menu's x2

Friday 10 June 2016

You Cannot Be Serious, # 74

This fairly short piece of text is marked by confusion, due to a failure to proofread before posting — or since: the mangle, submitted by Dr Faustus a month ago was still in place as of this morning — and an absence of any of the hyphens required by the rules of grammar and for the sake of clarity, as well as inconsistency in the positioning of the registered trademark symbol:

Link: Vitae, ‘Vitae Three Minute Thesis competition’
by the until the end of June; Three Minute Thesis competition; Vitae hosted

Thursday 9 June 2016

Double-take, # 240

A noun-verb mismatch in the headline is supported by an odd turn of phrase in the subheading, plus a possible eggcorn:

Link: WalesOnline
Box of retro Wales shirts […] are discovered; youth shirts; packages for packaging

Wednesday 8 June 2016

Not Washed or Cooked, # 312

A glaring mangle in a large font in a display box — you’d have thought someone would have noticed in time:

Source: Towpath Talk, 127 (May 2016), p. 21
reasaonble

Tuesday 7 June 2016

You Cannot Be Serious, # 73

From Mo Juste, who comments: ‘It looks like part of the old game show — “rearrange these words into a well known phrase or saying”.’

Link: Northampton Chronicle & Echo
Northampton to restoration of the monarchy in 1660 with Oak Apple Day service

Monday 6 June 2016

You Cannot Be Serious, # 72

These come via Gary Hazell. The top screenshot is taken of the company’s website (where one of the many mangles has now been corrected), and the other from its Facebook page. A cynic might say the copy had been rushed out to take advantage of circumstances:

Link: PhilosophyFootball.com, ‘Muhammad Ali’

Link: Facebook, PhilosophyFootball, 4 June, 2016, 10:42
WE REMEMBER £5 FROM EACH SHIRT, solidatirty, dinated, suppoters, anti-war, pro Civil Rights; persoinal

Saturday 4 June 2016

Double-take, # 239

Dr Faustus spotted this in his local EE shop:

Apologies’; shut from 5:30 tonight we apologise […]; To Our Valued Customers

Wednesday 1 June 2016

Handritten, # 7

Just Nick says he spotted this somewhere in Nuneaton, adding: ‘Not sure of the specific place — we had to take it at traffic lights!’

parkinig, onley

Tuesday 31 May 2016

Not Washed or Cooked, # 311

This mangle comes, via Dr Faustus, from an examination on the course in Teaching English as a Foreign Language offered by the Centre for Languages & International Education at University College London:

metholodology

Saturday 28 May 2016

Friday 27 May 2016

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 230

Is this mangle a slip or an eggcorn? It comes from an item entirely based on an examination of posts on social media, a cheap, lazy and unsatisfactory method of ‘reporting’ that has now become ubiquitous:

Link: The Express, ‘Paxman Praised for Shining Light on REAL EU but Europhiles Complain of “BBC BIAS”’
bias for biassed/biased

Thursday 26 May 2016

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 109

A very odd use of a word here, in a sentence whose grammar is also dubious:

Source: Rugby Observer, ‘Violent Attacker to be Deported after Prison’ (19 May, 2016), p. 9; and online
suspect remains outstanding [+hoped that he may still be identified]

Wednesday 25 May 2016

Monday 23 May 2016

Not Washed or Cooked, # 309

From Just Liam comes this mind-boggling mangle. As is isn’t possible to determine how vacancies are uploaded and by whom, the perpetrator is not apparent, although the bonus mangle, from the same page, must certainly be the university’s own text:

Link: Indeed, ‘Instructor or Assistant Professer: UMD Department of History’

Professer; Smoking, chewing tobacco and the use of electronic cigarettes is prohibited

Friday 20 May 2016

You Cannot Be Serious, # 71

Dr Faustus spots some problematic programming in an automated email from KCL’s IT Services. The syntax is not most logically ordered either:

We informed you that we believe your issued to be resolved on the [insert date]

Thursday 19 May 2016

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 108

Des Pond of Slough muses: ‘Ideal for onion-sellers?’

Living France, 299 (April, 2016), p. 13

peddling for pedalling

Tuesday 17 May 2016

Sunday 15 May 2016

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 106

It’s not entirely clear what relevance being a dog owner has here, the concept of a canine facial seems bizarre, and the capitalization is inconsistent — and that is all in addition to the mangle!

nails for claws [dog groomer]

Saturday 14 May 2016

Singular or Plural? # 19

Spotted by Dr Faustus at Locksbridge Park, a new housing development in Andover:

The early bird gets the house they want

Friday 13 May 2016

You Cannot Be Serious, # 69

The caption-writer either doesn’t understand the term ‘clockwise’ or needs to learn to check details before posting… This was spotted by Dr Faustus, who explains: ‘If the photos were correctly read clockwise from top left, the bottom two pictures should be swapped over. Result: unintentionally hilarious image of the Mad Hatter as a new X-Man’ — so crossed streams after all?

Link: The Guardian, ‘Scorchers: The Hottest Films of Summer 2016’
misordered caption – X-Men/Alice crossover]

Thursday 12 May 2016