Source: Just Like Us |
Mangling English: an occasional rant
Businesses that don't bother checking their websites, journalists who write gibberish and balderdash, professionals who can't take the extra time and effort to spell-check and proofread, newspapers that turn tragedy into farce through solecisms, plus the odd guide to solving common grammatical difficulties… Contributions and suggestions welcome. (… Also corrections if required, obviously!) Send to: manglingenglishATgmxDOTcom, stating your nom de mangle (if desired).
Monday 21 November 2016
Sunday 26 June 2016
Double-take, # 248
The mangled headline is just the beginning:
[headline but no report, or pictures, or anything]
Link: Rugby Adverttiser |
Saturday 25 June 2016
Multimangle, # 56
This does not reflect well on the writer, the education system, or an industry that largely seems to have decided that sub-editors aren’t necessary:
Link: SomersetLive, ‘Crocs are Bad for Your Health Say Experts, as Patients Complain of Heel Pain on Daily Basis’ |
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) |
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!
Pram pushing Barnstaple mother ‘so drunk she couldn't stand’
Link: North Devon Journal |
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 |
Monday 20 June 2016
Double-take, # 245
This is not an adjective:
hero for heroic
Link: South Hams Gazette, ‘Dog Alerts Dartmouth Family to Fridge-freezer Blaze’ |
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’ |
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 |
Thursday 16 June 2016
Multimangle, # 54
Dubious grammar and punctuation:
number … are + punctuation
Link: The Scotman, ‘Scots Students Losing out to English at Home Universities’ |
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