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

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 110

This mangle, spotted by Dr Faustus, has now been corrected:

Link: BBC News, ‘Alton Towers Smiler Ride Reopens Nine Months After Horror Crash’

insure for ensure

Not Washed or Cooked, # 310

Via Dr Faustus:

Link: The Independent, ‘Procrastination Makes You More Creative, Research Says’

procratisnation

Double-take, # 237

Dr Faustus says: ‘Spotted in a fire vehicle displayed at my local primary school.’

when when

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

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]

Multimangle, # 52

Many a mangle in this advertisement for the Fox Inn, Lutterworth:

Link: Rugby Observer, 19 May, 2016, p. 16

resturaunt, extensiver, your'e [+ random capitalization, punctuation & syntax]

Double-take, # 236

This seems improbable:

Link: MNT/Medical News Today, ‘Menopause Does Not Result In Weight Gain […]’

hops for hips [+ professor for Professor]

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

Double-take, # 235

A confusion of past forms (with bonus mangled syntax):

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Debtor days are over as BIS calls time on world credit binge’

rang for rung

Double-take, # 234

Via Dr Faustus:

Link: Twitter, @SkyNews (16 May, 2016)

the UK’s UK’s driverless cars

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]

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 108

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

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

peddling for pedalling

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 107

Des Pond of Slough reads an article on the European Referendum, and asks: ‘Does Brexit mean giving up speaking English?’

Link: The Telegraph, ‘EU to Launch Kettle and Toaster Crackdown after Brexit Vote’

convict for commit

You Cannot Be Serious, # 70

While we’re on the topic of dental care, here is a puzzling choice of adjective — twice:

therapeutic taste

Double-take, # 233

Spotted, Dr Faustus says, rather vaguely, ‘in my local pharmacy’:

hygene

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]

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

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]

Not Washed or Cooked, # 308

Smoothly following on from yesterday’s contribution, in which an academic institution used unedited copy to promote a course on editing, today’s mangle was found, by Dr Faustus, on the blog of a journalism website:

Link: Brighton Journalist Works, ‘YOU Magazine to Red, Alumna Emma Laurence’s Journey to Freelance Writing’

Jounalism

Double-take, # 232

This mangled text was found on Oxford University’s website by Arina, who comments: ‘It’s hilarious that this comes from the description of a module on editing.’

Link: University of Oxford Language Centre, ‘English for Academic Studies’

Repetition of copy: ‘Editing your Thesis with Corpora is a short (12-hour) course designed for doctoral students who are at the transfer stage […] This 12-hour intensive course is designed for doctoral students who have passed the transfer stage […].’

You Cannot Be Serious, # 68

It was going so well, but then the writer chose an adjectival construction instead of negating the verb, and it all went horribly wrong…

Source: Times Higher Education, 2253 (5—11May, 2016), p. 4

drones can carry only a small payload, let alone […]

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 105

The writer knows what the right word is, as it appears in the final paragraph here, but the word used in second paragraph makes little sense, as Dr Faustus observes. There’s a hyphen missing too:

Link: BBC News, ‘Britons with “wrong passport” stopped from travelling to US’

biometric trip [for chip]; old style passport

Double-take, # 231

The Mangling English email provider is now sending mangles direct to the inbox!

This mangle is related to one covered in more detail in December 2012. The construction here uses a personal pronoun (you) instead of the reflexive pronoun (yourself) that is needed to express the idea of performing (as the verb’s subject) an action on oneself (as the verb’s object).

An explanation, with examples of correct usage, can be found on the Oxford Dictionaries website.

Protect you and your loved ones

Double-take, # 230

The writer of this report seems not to understand that a whole word does not work the same way as its abbreviation, and needs a space:

Link: Express, ‘Private Contractors Cost NHS, and Taxpayers, Millions in Botched Operations’

£9million, £3.2million, £33million, £52million; failures […] has

Double-take, # 229

Some time ago, Dr Faustus submitted this shot of a mangle from the printed Radio Times (edition unknown). A search on its website suggests that this mangle occurs quite often in the publication:

The ‘i before e’ issue was addressed by Mangling English in December 2012.

fiesty

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 104

A pesky homophone and a bilingual slip, via Des Pond of Slough:

Source: French Property News, 301 (March 2016), p. 57

electoral roll; vehicule for vehicle

Double-take, # 228

Not a description that guarantees effectiveness:

Link: Playepub, ‘Translator’

tanslate

Not Washed or Cooked, # 307

It would seem that The Guardian still has no spell-checking facilities:

Link: The Guardian, ‘Berlin’s Government Legislates against Airbnb’

officals

You Cannot Be Serious, # 67

This Telegraph report was scrapped and its address now redirects visitors to a page about bookies’ odds for bets on the weather for Easter 2016, although echoes of the original text still remain online. At the time this snapshot was taken, however, it seemed that the writer was already on vacation:

haolidaymakers

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 103

Dr Faustus is unimpressed by what he calls an ‘insensitive mangle’ (though the insensitivity arguably begins with the headline, and ‘insensitive’ seems too generous a term):

Link: BBC News, ‘Memorial Service for Ben Nevis Death Climber Tim Newton’

exhibitions for expeditions