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).

Sunday, 3 August 2014

Double-take, # 85

A final outing for this book, which featured first in June and again yesterday:

Source: Peter Buitenhuis, The Great War of Words: Literature as Propaganda, 1914-18 and After (London: Batsford, 1989), p. 121

Opening and closing quotation marks have been transposed in the narrative interpolation, and double quotation marks inserted instead of the single marks indicating direct speech in the chosen style. Confused and confusing.

wrong sort of quotation marks & wrong way round

Mangling English: an occasional rant

Sunday, 3 August 2014

Double-take, # 85

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