You Cannot Be Serious, # 75

From Dr Faustus:

Source: Just Like Us

homophic

Double-take, # 248

The mangled headline is just the beginning:

Link: Rugby Adverttiser

[headline but no report, or pictures, or anything]

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’

footwear that are Crocs; [punctuation]

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)

caption (& picture of a hand) ‘posting many letters to red british [sic] postbox on street’, illustrating postal workers strike

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

Double-take, # 246

What a difference a hyphen can — or would — make!

Link: North Devon Journal

Pram pushing Barnstaple mother ‘so drunk she couldn't stand’

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

crack down for crackdown; of for on; area for area; [syntax]

Double-take, # 245

This is not an adjective:

Link: South Hams Gazette, ‘Dog Alerts Dartmouth Family to Fridge-freezer Blaze’

hero for heroic

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]

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’

Teenage jailed

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

Colvend women accident sets fire; accidently

Multimangle, # 54

Dubious grammar and punctuation:

Link: The Scotman, ‘Scots Students Losing out to English at Home Universities’

number … are + punctuation

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 231

Clearly a mistype here, although arguably the word that should have been typed isn’t quite what’s meant either:

Link: The Scotman, ‘Edinburgh Man Accused of Mock Crucifixion of Co-worker’

complaint for compliant [but arguably compliant not right either]

Double-take, # 242

As Mo Juste points out, ‘This does rather sound like a large and dangerous bag is at large.’ It is hard to see how the bag is significant enough to feature in the headline at all, much less in prime position (it appears near the end of the report, as part of a description of the miscreant), but, as it stands, a hyphen might improve matters:

Link: Northampton Chronicle & Echo

Hessian bag carrying man sexually assaulted woman

Double-take, # 241

The mangles are bad enough, but given that Paris was submerged at the time (3 June, 2016) and the Louvre was sending key pieces offsite for safety, the verb ‘flood’ seems ill-chosen:

Link: Mirrorspectrum, ‘Media Blackout As France Witnesses Biggest Revolution in 200 Years’

protestor for protestors; The first collaborative protest against the Socialist government since Hollande came to power in 2012, kicked off on 9 March

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 117

Spotted on Clarendon Road, Watford:

11 minutes walk

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 116

Via Tim Matter, an apostrophe catastrophe on the menu of The Countryman in Staverton. As the second screenshot shows, the pub’s website also has mangled apostrophes, while an adjacent date suggests that review/update schedules are being ignored:

Link: The Countryman, ‘Food’

Taylors, coffee's; menu's x2

You Cannot Be Serious, # 74

This fairly short piece of text is marked by confusion, due to a failure to proofread before posting — or since: the mangle, submitted by Dr Faustus a month ago was still in place as of this morning — and an absence of any of the hyphens required by the rules of grammar and for the sake of clarity, as well as inconsistency in the positioning of the registered trademark symbol:

Link: Vitae, ‘Vitae Three Minute Thesis competition’

by the until the end of June; Three Minute Thesis competition; Vitae hosted

Double-take, # 240

A noun-verb mismatch in the headline is supported by an odd turn of phrase in the subheading, plus a possible eggcorn:

Link: WalesOnline

Box of retro Wales shirts […] are discovered; youth shirts; packages for packaging

Not Washed or Cooked, # 312

A glaring mangle in a large font in a display box — you’d have thought someone would have noticed in time:

Source: Towpath Talk, 127 (May 2016), p. 21

reasaonble

You Cannot Be Serious, # 73

From Mo Juste, who comments: ‘It looks like part of the old game show — “rearrange these words into a well known phrase or saying”.’

Link: Northampton Chronicle & Echo

Northampton to restoration of the monarchy in 1660 with Oak Apple Day service

You Cannot Be Serious, # 72

These come via Gary Hazell. The top screenshot is taken of the company’s website (where one of the many mangles has now been corrected), and the other from its Facebook page. A cynic might say the copy had been rushed out to take advantage of circumstances:

Link: PhilosophyFootball.com, ‘Muhammad Ali’

Link: Facebook, PhilosophyFootball, 4 June, 2016, 10:42

WE REMEMBER £5 FROM EACH SHIRT, solidatirty, dinated, suppoters, anti-war, pro Civil Rights; persoinal

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 115

Dr Faustus is unimpressed by the persistent misuse of apostrophes in this press release:

Link: ResponseSource Press Release Wire

CV’s (x3)

Double-take, # 239

Dr Faustus spotted this in his local EE shop:

Apologies’; shut from 5:30 tonight we apologise […]; To Our Valued Customers

Multimangle, # 53

A veritable cornucopia of mangles!

Link: Honeywell VT117 Traditional Flow Radiator Thermostat, ‘Installation and User Instruction’ leaflet

temerature, guideance, decorators cap, cle-aning, sea-ting, seperate

Double-take, # 238

Someone at this publishing house is clearly trying to follow a pattern, but not all cases fit:

Link: W. W. Norton & Company, ‘Norton Critical Editions’

children literature

Handritten, # 7

Just Nick says he spotted this somewhere in Nuneaton, adding: ‘Not sure of the specific place — we had to take it at traffic lights!’

parkinig, onley

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