Apostrophe catastrophe, # 114

Dr Faustus found this on a piece of clothing in H&M and was, he says, quite tempted to buy it, but for the apostrophe catastrophe which he could not countenance wearing. The inexplicable dash and the odd motto beneath the main text also offer good reasons to leave it on the rack:

world’s; New— York City; the island of manhattan | city of superlatives

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 113

A painful moment at the British Museum:

Source: The British Museum, wall decoration, ‘Francis Towne’s Watercolours of Rome’ exhibition

it’s for its

Multimangle, # 51

Another mangle variety-pack from Dr Faustus:

Link: England’s North East, ‘Roots, Dialect and Place-names’

80 %; 30 %; comaprison; continuosly

Double-take, # 227

Dr Faustus is puzzled by bus stop signage:

Baughurst Commom

Mangling Meaning, # 38

Via Dr Faustus, meaning is much mangled by a failure (throughout the report) to use the required initial capital letter for the adjective. The odd punctuation in the opening sentence is a bonus:

Link: BBC News

catholic for Catholic; Chief Constable, George Hamilton, says

Not Washed or Cooked, # 306

From Chris Gibbons comes this unfortunate slip in an illustration in a list of facts about the London Underground. (The complete infographic [sic] puzzled Chris further in stating that ‘Alcohol was banned on the Tube — and all London Transport — from June 2008’, which rather implies that users of public transport must buy from outlets close to home or not at all.)

Link: Hull Trains, ‘London Underground Facts: Infographic’

pealty for penalty

Double-take, # 226

Logically flawed:

Link: The Times, ‘Women Charged More on “Sexist” High Street’

identical children’s scooters are £5 more expensive in pink than in blue

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 229

From Dr Faustus (and now corrected):

Link: BBC News, ‘Can the Micro Bit Inspire a Million?’

lunch for launch

Multimangle, # 50

Spotted by Tim Matter at The Phene in south-west London comes this polite notice, complete with idiosyncratic spelling and a final sentence that seems to have lost its way:

noisey; derrier; those wanting a cheeky cigarette after 10pm, please do so quietly without your drinks

Double-take, # 225

Via Dr Faustus, another eye-watering paragraph from the College of Media and Publishing:

Link: College of Media and Publishing, ‘Do the NCTJ diploma the digital way’

 You cannot be able to get the NCTJ diploma, for a better price, anywhere

Double-take, # 224

A hideous mangle, a puzzling preposition, and some repetitive and confusing gerunds, spotted by Dr Faustus:

Link: College of Media and Publishing, Sports Journalism

jurnalism; exciting reading looking; reading [again]; about for by?

Not Washed or Cooked, # 305

Des Pond of Slough was looking at Portmeirion’s webcams for activities connected with the Prisoner Convention when he came upon this mangle:

Link: Portmeirion, Webcams — Town Hall Camera

Gazzebo

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 102

This mangle can be found on one of the banners adorning the Museo Nazionale Romano in Rome, promoting the ‘Once Were Romans’ exhibition. New-found Mangler, who spotted it, points out that, in Italian pronunciation, the correct English translation and this erroneous word would be almost homophonous:

leaps for lips

Double-take, # 223

The Express apparently driving the point home in February 2016 in this headline (now changed):

Link: The Express, ‘Right-wing fascists bring Liverpool to a standstill as violence erupts’

Later in the report came this gem:

Aside from the omission of the crucial hyphen (and why ‘right-wing’, but not ‘far-right’?), the verb ‘carrying out’ applied to saluting seems very odd, in a way that ‘performing’, or even ‘doing’, might not.

Right-wing fascists; carrying out far right salutes

Multimangle, # 49

A weekend variety pack:

Link: The Swindonian, ‘Lottery winners not too happy’

Saturdays draw; jut for just; punctuation; comma splice

You Cannot Be Serious, # 66

This writer seems to be mixing up very different literary personae:

Link: Cosmopolitan, ‘26 things you didn’t know about Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’

hyde for hide

You Cannot Be Serious, # 65

It would seem, and it is confirmed by the webpage’s address, that the writer of this breadcrumb (the first screenshot below) decided that the writer of the headline (the second screenshot) had used the wrong preposition and so changed it, mangling the meaning in a rather hilarious manner. (Neither spells the playwright’s first name with a diaeresis, as he always did.)

Link: The Telegraph, ‘What It’s Like to Live with Noel [sic] Coward’s Garden’

What it’s Like to Live in Noel Coward’s Garden

Not Washed or Cooked, # 304

Dr Faustus has spotted someone with a sticky space bar (and some super-sibilant acronyms):

Link: University College London [UCL], ‘Call for Papers […]’

Growthin for Growth in

You Cannot Be Serious, # 64

The Telegraph hedging its spelling bets again:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Holiday Money: The Ultimate Guide to Buying’

bureaus; bureaux

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 101

Unjust and incorrect!

Link: The New Times [Rwanda], ‘Cashless Bus Fair System Should Be Made Optional’

fair for fare

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 100

Another nonsensical preposition:

Link: The Sunday Times, ‘Archbishop Warns of Campus Anti-Semites’

echoes with for echoes of

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 112

Comparison between the third item below and later entries suggests that apostrophes apply only to children:

Link: Brussels Airlines, ‘Hand Luggage — General Rules’

1 ladies handbag

You Cannot Be Serious, # 63

Dr Faustus thinks this may be less money than it looks:

Link: BBC News, NI’s top lawyer to join “gay cake” case’

£500 pounds

You Cannot Be Serious, # 62

Des Pond of Slough has submitted this recent breadcrumb from The Telegraph’s homepage, asking: ‘If you lose a loss, isn’t that a gain?’

lost 22pc loss

Double-take, # 222

Dr Faustus received an email from Xi’an Jiaotong–Liverpool University, inviting him to study in China. It concludes with a paragraph containing an unwieldy prepositional clause — a frequently ill-used construction — which is further compromised by an adverb that does not very precisely communicate its meaning, although placing it after the verb might have improved matters:

purely taught in English; unwieldy prepositional clause

Not Washed or Cooked, # 303

Gary Hazell spotted this on Facebook:

Link: Facebook.com, The Swindonian

The headline is correct on the website, but its address suggests this is where the error originated:

librarires

Double-take, # 221

From MrsX comes this now-corrected (but still badly-phrased and badly-punctuated) gem:

Link: University of York PUBlic Seminar

Each talk will be 10 minutes long containing no talk or equations

Mangling Meaning, # 37

Incoherence verging on utter nonsense from The Express:

Link: The Express, ‘Outrage as Hotel Homes 300 Asylum Seekers — Without Telling Anyone’

asylum seekers have been housed in a major hotel without informing anyone; in what the authorities claim is on the sly

Double-take, # 220

It must be the price of all that technology that has resulted in these Telegraph ‘kids’ improbably having to share a room… Not to worry: they aren’t actually sharing. The writer of the breadcrumb has saved space by deleting the final s of the headline:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Here’s How Much All the Tech in Your Kids’ Bedrooms Has Cost You’

kids’ bedroom for kids’ bedrooms

Multimangle, # 48

Des Pond of Slough has now taken several online courses, of which the latest, delivered by Future Learn, is ‘From World War to White Heat: the RAF in the Cold War’, a collaboration by Royal Air Force [RAF] Museums and the Department of History at Royal Holloway, University of London, under the guidance of Dr Ross Mahoney, Aviation Historian, RAF Museum, and Dr Emmett Sullivan, Senior Lecturer in History, Royal Holloway.

Des is usually full of praise for these courses, but this one has been dogged by badly-finished written materials. Submitting this example, Des remarks: ‘This is after typos had been pointed out by several people, so this is the corrected version.’

deminished; in for of, & boarders for borders