Not Washed or Cooked, # 259

Despite the correct spelling on the adjacent poster, the key word is misspelt not once but twice, and differently each time!

Link: Silver Blades Ice Rinks, Solihull, ‘Our Events’

Hallloween; Hallween

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 100

This mangle appeared in a marketing email sent to Dr Faustus by the Donmar Theatre. The full poster can presently be found online:

chair’s for chairs

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 201

A slip on a sign in the main cloisters canteen at University College London, submitted by Dr Faustus:

you for your

Double-take, # 190

Another from Dr Faustus. The duplicated article seems to be a minor problem amidst the convoluted syntax and repetitive diction:

the the [+ repetitive/convoluted diction]

Not Washed or Cooked, # 258

Another from Dr Faustus. With these prices the centre will soon be able to afford a spell-checker!

tarriff

Not Washed or Cooked, # 257

Submitted by Dr Faustus. There is no glory in spelling something correctly only most of the time, especially if you‘re professing expertise in it, and while not all proper nouns are included in spell-checking dictionaries, this one certainly is! There also seems to be indecision or conflict about the inclusion of a preposition in the course title:

Link: King’s College London, ‘MA [in] Shakespeare Studies’

Shakepeare; MA Shakespeare Studies/MA in Shakespeare Studies/

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 99

Spotted at the Diversity Careers Fair at the Royal College of Surgeons by Dr Faustus:

career’s for careers

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 200

Stilted syntax and a mangle, spotted by Dr Faustus:

Link: BBC News, ‘China shares fall more than 8% on growth concerns’

The mangled verb was subsequently changed — unfortunately to the simple present ‘saw’ rather than the past perfect (or pluperfect) ‘had seen’ that the context‘s temporal logic requires, and which seemed to be what the writer had originally intended.

seen for hd seen [+saw for had seen]

Double-take, # 189

Here is a major mismatch between the formulation of a question and the possible answers offered by Yorkshire Bank:

How long have you […]? [n year(s)] ago

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 199

From one renowned university to another… Today’s mangle, submitted by Dr Faustus, is down to staff, not students:

Link: The University of Bern (Universität Bern), Center [sic] for Cultural Studies, ‘The Structure of the Word [sic] Literature Study Programme’

word for world

Not Washed or Cooked, # 256

Pleaseproofread sends this (from which I’ve clipped the relevant section from the full poster), commenting: ‘What a mangle. I suppose we should be glad they spelt “medieval” correctly!’

acamdeic

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 98

This heinous and nonsensical grammatical error is becoming ubiquitous:

Link: BBC News, ‘Ancestors “had less sleep” than we do’

The comparison is not, as the construction of the final subordinate clause above suggests, between modern people’s lifestyles and ancient hunter gatherers, but between modern people’s lifestyles and the lifestyles of ancient hunter gatherers, which thus requires an apostrophe after ‘gatherers’.

lifestyles closely resemble ancient hunter gatherers [no apostrophe]

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 90

Via Dr Faustus, a pesky homophone in a theatre review:

Link: TimeOut, review of Our Country’s Good

course for coarse

You Cannot Be Serious, # 60

There are presently several versions of this meme, which appears on car-window decals and in other formats in addition to the ubiquitous online graphics. Most seem to contain this hideous mangle:

Link: Facebook, Janoskians

miss spell

You Cannot Be Serious, # 59

This product, with its tautologous description, spent much of this year in the remaindered display at the Rugby branch of Lidl:

decorative ornament

You Cannot Be Serious, # 58

Not the best word to misspell, nor the best place to misspell it:

proffessional [+ punctuation]

Double-take, # 188

So good you can do it twice, or intended to be a different course in Ancient History? (Don’t miss the unlikely-sounding title at the bottom of the list…)

Source: Northamptonshire County Council, ‘My County Council: Adult Learning Courses’, Autumn 2015—Spring 2016

duplicated course name (Ancient History – Egypt and Mesopotamia)

Double-take, # 187

An unfortunate homophonous mangle, submitted by Dr Faustus. The error has been corrected on the BBC’s webpage, but Google shows that echoes still remain:

duel for dual

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 89

A puzzling mangle, spotted by Des Pond of Slough:

Source: Rugby Observer (8 October 2015), p. 48, and online

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 198

From the backlog of Dr Faustus, who spotted this at the Tudor House in Southampton:

us for is

You Cannot Be Serious, # 57

This political poster is currently doing the rounds on social media. In addition to the typographical mangle and the odd temporal description, the group’s identifying acronym and logo are omitted:

 

airstikes; ‘just several days’ [+ missing identifying logo/acronym]

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 97

On sale, and spotted by Des Pond of Slough, in the shop at the Heritage Motor Centre Motor Museum in Gaydon:

First Mini’s at Longbridge

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 96

The charity formerly known as Citizens’ Advice Bureau has apparently been rebranded and eschews possessive apostrophes in its name, which rather implies uncertainly about the number of citizens it is willing to aid:

Link: Citizens Advice

Elsewhere (Rugby, in this case), nonsensical pre-rebrand signage sidesteps the apostrophe problem entirely:

Citizen Advice Bureau

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 197

The first in an otherwise largely unproblematic list of activities (the other mangle was ‘patch work’ for ‘patchwork’) at a Warwickshire fete:

princes and princes competition

Double-take, # 186

Spotted in July 2012 in a charity shop:

No food or drink to be consumed in this store. (Including children)

You Cannot Be Serious, # 56

This advertisement from the Rugby Observer, 24 June 2014, shows some interesting career options:

Apprenticeships [… Business Administration Customer Service […] Sports Coaching Warehousing & Nail Services

Double-take, # 185

Des Pond of Slough finds this Sainsbury’s sign quite amusing:

Our fresh chicken […] has been for 10 years

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 95

From the backlog of Dr Faustus, a notice in the London-Bayswater branch of L. A. Fitness:

other members safety

Multimangle, # 27

A nasty misspelling plus a major mismatch in grammatical logic between the question and answer categories:

Source: Eurostar UK journey satisfaction survey

knowledgable + grammatical mismatch between option subjects & answer categories

Double-take, # 184

Via Dr Faustus, a section from one of those irritating and increasingly widespread ‘news reports’ that are largely based on reproducing, usually graphically, Twitter posts. The mangle, which arrives at the end, may well be an expression of the reporter’s boredom. I’m amazed Dr Faustus lasted so long through the piece!

Link: ITV News, ‘Spectator magazine under fire for article on Liz Kendall’s and Yvette Cooper’s looks’

Asked by Channel 4 News journalist Fraser Nelson […], editor Fraser Nelson said

Not Washed or Cooked, # 255

The mangled place-name has featured before; the adverb is making its debut. It seems more likely that the subheading was composed by a sub-editor than the comment-article writer; in either case it’s substandard:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘This is why “Pension Isas” would be a disaster’

seriosuly; Britian