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

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

Not Washed or Cooked, # 305

Des Pond of Slough was looking at Portmeirion’s webcams for activities connected with the Prisoner Convention when he came upon this mangle:

Link: Portmeirion, Webcams — Town Hall Camera

Gazzebo

You Cannot Be Serious, # 62

Des Pond of Slough has submitted this recent breadcrumb from The Telegraph’s homepage, asking: ‘If you lose a loss, isn’t that a gain?’

lost 22pc loss

Multimangle, # 48

Des Pond of Slough has now taken several online courses, of which the latest, delivered by Future Learn, is ‘From World War to White Heat: the RAF in the Cold War’, a collaboration by Royal Air Force [RAF] Museums and the Department of History at Royal Holloway, University of London, under the guidance of Dr Ross Mahoney, Aviation Historian, RAF Museum, and Dr Emmett Sullivan, Senior Lecturer in History, Royal Holloway.

Des is usually full of praise for these courses, but this one has been dogged by badly-finished written materials. Submitting this example, Des remarks: ‘This is after typos had been pointed out by several people, so this is the corrected version.’

deminished; in for of, & boarders for borders

Mangling Meaning, # 34

‘I can’t even begin to make sense of this,’ writes Des Pond of Slough:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘“Mummified” body of adventurer found in abandoned yacht to be identified by sailor’s daughter’

he last heard of him ago on social media for his birthday

Not Washed or Cooked, # 296

Des Pond of Slough submitted this entry from the ‘Featured Video’ list of yesterday’s Telegraph homepage, commenting, ‘Not with a bhang?’

wimper

Multimangle, # 32

From Des Pond of Slough, an omitted letter and an apostrophe that has apparently fallen from its rightful place into a later paragraph:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘The Crystal Maze returns […]’

crowfunding, six months time, it's for its

Multimangle, # 31

With a touch of déjà vu (see yesterday), here is another Shoulder of Mutton menu from The Rugby Register, submitted by Des Pond of Slough. His main concern was the conceit in the titles of the courses, which, as he says, starts so well then goes so wrong; but there are several other mangles on offer too, not all of them in English:

Link: The Rugby Register, North and Villages edition, advertisement for The Shoulder of Mutton, p. 23

first bell, second bell, full peel; goats cheese; gileete potato for gillette; french toast; mush for mash (?); celeriace; passion fruit; frangipan for frangipane; cinemon

Multimangle, # 30

From Des Pond of Slough comes this extract, featuring an apostrophe catastrophe, a homophone and an unusual, if unmangled, description of a traditional menu item:

Link: The Rugby Register, North and Villages edition, advertisement for The Shoulder of Mutton, p. 37

bite’s for bites; fayre for fare; [soup of the moment]

Not Washed or Cooked, # 278

Des Pond of Slough was surprised this mangle made it to publication, especially given the size of the lettering and the sparseness of the copy:

Link: Rugby Observer, 10 December, 2015, p. 32

hundereds

Double-take, # 201

Des Pond of Slough is puzzled by a word in a news report, though clearly not as puzzled as the reporter. There is also the matter of the use of both ‘curly’ and ‘straight’ quotation marks. Is this accidental, or are they intended to convey some nuance?

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Secret Russian radioactive doomsday torpedo leaked on television’

asymetically [+ curly & straight quotation marks]

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 101

From Des Pond of Slough, a prime position for an advertisement — and its mangle:

Link: Rugby Observer (22 October, 2015), p. 1

theres

Double-take, # 196

Des Pond of Slough feels there’s some homophonous confusion here and I’m inclined to agree:

Source: ‘Great Rail Journeys — The Magic of Sicily tour’, CSMA Club Life magazine (November/December 2015, p. 89)

sight for site

Double-take, # 195

Another find by Des Pond of Slough. Hypercorrection, perhaps:

Link: Rugby Observer (22 October, 2015), p. 7

squalour

Double-take, # 194

A fishy mangle, with dreadful pun, via Des Pond of Slough:

Source: The Telegraph, breadcrumb to ‘Twitter had the best response to a lorry shedding a load of fish in Scotland’

Until I investigated this mangle, I had no idea that there was a verb shed that meant — very precisely — ‘Park (a vehicle) in a depot’, the definition given by Oxford Dictionaries. The simple past tense and the past participle of this verb are shedded. The OED* offers two definitions: the obscure (it says) ‘To roof over’, and a broader equivalent of the Oxford Dictionaries’ entry, ‘To place in a shed’.

The other verb shed, which is the one intended by The Telegraph’s breadcrumb, is irregular, and both the simple past and past participle forms are shed.

shedded for shed

* Subscription access only.

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 89

A puzzling mangle, spotted by Des Pond of Slough:

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

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

Now Try It In English, # 6

Des Pond of Slough is particularly shocked at the source of this mangled text from a leaflet adverti-sing places of interest, though he doesn’t explain why he had believed the National Trust to be such a paragon of linguistic excellence! It is indeed a prodigious tangle of words, and also seems to be tacitly promising some form of séance:

hear bard himself will guiding you