Not Washed or Cooked, # 287

A strange new word in an article on good university teachers:

Link: The Guardian, ‘Want to improve teaching in universities? Value those who teach’

proposesusing

Multimangle, # 38

Dr Faustus has found this piece of prose, which mangles grammar, syntax, punctuation and meaning:

Link: Generator, ‘More than a hostel’

your for you’re; shifting perspective; syntax; spacing

Not Washed or Cooked, # 286

Bob Godiva received this in his inbox:

protal for portal

Not Washed or Cooked, # 285

The opening paragraph of a news item from earlier this week. The mangled word is spelt correctly later in the report:

Link: The Guardian, ‘London students refuse to pay rent and demand 40% cut’

accomodation

Not Washed or Cooked, # 284

A typographical error plus overuse of conjunctions (not an example of polysyndeton, methinks) in the final paragraph here. The earlier ones are included to show why the question In what way is this either news or journalism? came to mind as I was reading them:

Link: The Independent, ‘London’s “cheapest flat” sells for £79,000 in Clapton’

recieved (as well as received); and … and … and

Not Washed or Cooked, # 283

The Old Hand & Diamond Inn’s menu, featured yesterday, does not confine its mangles to Scottish food and drink:

Link: The Old Hand & Diamond Inn, Coedway

rasberry, rosemay for rosemary (twice), course for coarse; stilton for Stilton

Multimangle, # 37

Saluting the Scots poet for a second day with some more unfortunate spellings, although this time the apostrophe mangles are avoided as Burns is not mentioned :

Link: The Old Hand & Diamond Inn, Coedway

hagis, whiskey

Multimangle, # 36

In a short seasonal interlude, today’s and tomorrow’s mangles relate to the annual commemoration of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, a commemoration irregularly marked with an apostrophe. Here is an announcement for last year’s festivities from the Morgan Arms in London:

Link: Metropolitan Pub Company, Morgan Arms, Burns’ Night 2015

kneeps for neeps, e for and, & whisky’s as plural [plus Burns Night]

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 110

From Dr Faustus:

Link: LSE Political Theory Graduate Conference 2015

years’ for year’s

Problem punctuation, # 13

Syntactical confusion at Shakespeare’s Globe:

Guess what I got you for your birthday?

Double-take, # 211

An utter mess:

Link: The Sunday Times (subscription access only), ‘First Bite: How We Learn to Eat’

too many employees’ waistline exceeds

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 215

Given that it is reproduced all over the internet, it isn’t easy to work out where this mangle originated, but this recipe — usually marked ‘Recipe courtesy of Juan Rivas’ — has been copied verbatim, as these examples suggest:

Link: Food Network, ‘Grilled Pork Lion with Garlic Rosemary Marinade’

Link: Cooking Channel, ‘Grilled Pork Lion with Garlic Rosemary Marinade’

pork lion

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 214

Dr Faustus recently found this mangle on the application form for the graduate trainee scheme of The Financial Times. He comments: ‘Can’t believe the FT can’t proofread...’ It has to be said that the syntax isn’t prime quality either:

proved for provide

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 213

Dr Faustus found this mangle (now corrected) amongst the media‘s tributes to Alan Rickman:

Link: The Guardian, ‘Alan Rickman, giant of British screen and stage, dies at 69’

carton for cartoon

Double-take, # 210

Here, complete with superfluity, are the opening paragraphs of a recent report in The Times:

Source: The Times (8 January, 2016), p. 17, and online

Patricia Leask […] “got in a few good scratches on his face” although she damaged her own nails in the process.

Multimangle, # 35

Dr Faustus sent this in for the first paragraph’s closing punctuation and the erroneous conjunction in the second, demonstrating carelessness and a failure to proofread before posting. Also notable is the  opening paragraph’s structure:

Link: Cambridge News, ‘Study finds Labour councillors agree with Jeremy Corbyn […]’

Primary and secondary clauses related in this way must have the same subject; however, the subject of the opening, dependent clause here is ‘the clear favourite’ (Corbyn), but the main clause’s subject is ‘the study’. This creates a disjunction between the two syntactical units, and undermines both grammatical and logical sense in literally asserting that the study is the favourite Labour candidate. The details provided, being independent, should be given in separate sentences.

of for or; , for .; Currently the clear favourite to win the Labour leadership election, the study found […]

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 109

In the second paragraph of this submission from Dr Faustus, the quotation marks used to distinguish the play’s title have collided problematically with a possessive apostrophe. The preposition used (twice) with ‘divorce’ in the first paragraph seems ill-chosen too:

Link: TimeOut, ‘Controversial author Rachel Cusk reshapes Euripides’s “Medea” in her own image’

‘Medea’s; divorce with

Not Washed or Cooked, # 282

Dr Faustus sends this glaring mangle:

Link: Bitesize Irish Gaelic, ‘How David White Got Into Irish Gealic (Ep. 56)’

Gealic for Gaelic

Double-take, # 209

This comes from Mo Juste:

Link: Northampton Chronicle & Echo, ‘Historic tree stolen […]’

He comments: ‘The tree, apparently, has a circumference of 4 feet, which would make it about 15 inches in diameter. Accordingly this would mean the front door in the photograph must be about 6 inches wide.’

mathematical mangle: circumference of 4 feet = about 15 inches in diameter = front door must be about 6 inches wide

Multimangle, # 34

This is horribly mangled:

Link: Medievalists.net, ‘Why Tolkien’s Beowulf is an “amazing book but a terrible translation”’

“a horrible, horrible, horrible translation” one that; The translation was made by Tolkien in the 1920s and intended it to be “crib notes” that was to be used

Double-take, # 208

Via Dr Faustus, and not a very promising start:

Source: Catrine Carpenter, Teach Yourself: Beginner’s French (London: Hodder Headline, 2003), p. vii

In addition to the overlooked duplication, the sentence includes a unhappy choice of lexis: an if where, as Cambridge Dictionaries Online confirms, the preferred conjunction in a situation offering alternatives linked with or is whether.

course course; if … or

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 94

There seems to have been a confusion of concepts in this scam email. At least it says ‘message’:

Electric Message Center

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 108

A televisual mangle:

Two Ronnie’s Spectacle

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 107

Spotted by Dr Faustus in the shop rebranded as Waterstone’s in 2010 and then, in 2012, re-rebranded (or possibly un-rebranded) back to Waterstones. Apostrophe confusion is clearly a core concept at the company:

CV’s

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 212

A couple of avoidable mangles, via Dr Faustus:

Link: Bettany Hughes, Historian, Author, Broadcaster, ‘About Bettany’

100 Global Woman; his written extensively

Multimangle, # 33

Received by a surprised Dr Faustus, who barely knows where to start (mangle-wise, that is), but is especially taken by the use of apostrophes, which certainly does ‘look unusual for’ him…

O’k; embroider for embroidery; It may look unusual foryou; I live in a small city. but I would like to see the world; I love to walk around the pair; foto; Now, I’m end

Double-take, # 207

An apostrophe catastrophe and a strange choice of preposition:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Protein World […] more sexist than ever’

its for it's & between for during

Multimangle, # 32

From Des Pond of Slough, an omitted letter and an apostrophe that has apparently fallen from its rightful place into a later paragraph:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘The Crystal Maze returns […]’

crowfunding, six months time, it's for its

Double-take, # 206

Using countries’ names adjectivally often feels odd and is arguably ungrammatical, and much more so with acronyms… and that’s not even the mangle here!

Link: The Telegraph, ‘The history of Guide Dogs for the Blind’

trained the first-ever UK and

Double-take, # 205

From the Dr Faustus backlog, here is a lovely bit of confusion from the ITV website:

Link: ITV.com, ‘Louisa Johnson sings her Winner'’s Song — Forever Young’

Louisa Johnson … his version

Double-take, # 204

Some better than others might have been a better response in this case given the grammatical mangle arising from inaccurate reproduction of the quotation, possibly coupled with unfamiliarity with the English second-person singular:

Link: Richard Bowker, Dover Beach (Shrewsbury, PA: ePublishing Works!, 2012) at Google Books

are thou