Double-take, # 248

The mangled headline is just the beginning:

Link: Rugby Adverttiser

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

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

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’

Double-take, # 245

This is not an adjective:

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

hero for heroic

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

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

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

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

Double-take, # 237

Dr Faustus says: ‘Spotted in a fire vehicle displayed at my local primary school.’

when when

Double-take, # 236

This seems improbable:

Link: MNT/Medical News Today, ‘Menopause Does Not Result In Weight Gain […]’

hops for hips [+ professor for Professor]

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

Double-take, # 233

Spotted, Dr Faustus says, rather vaguely, ‘in my local pharmacy’:

hygene

Double-take, # 232

This mangled text was found on Oxford University’s website by Arina, who comments: ‘It’s hilarious that this comes from the description of a module on editing.’

Link: University of Oxford Language Centre, ‘English for Academic Studies’

Repetition of copy: ‘Editing your Thesis with Corpora is a short (12-hour) course designed for doctoral students who are at the transfer stage […] This 12-hour intensive course is designed for doctoral students who have passed the transfer stage […].’

Double-take, # 231

The Mangling English email provider is now sending mangles direct to the inbox!

This mangle is related to one covered in more detail in December 2012. The construction here uses a personal pronoun (you) instead of the reflexive pronoun (yourself) that is needed to express the idea of performing (as the verb’s subject) an action on oneself (as the verb’s object).

An explanation, with examples of correct usage, can be found on the Oxford Dictionaries website.

Protect you and your loved ones

Double-take, # 230

The writer of this report seems not to understand that a whole word does not work the same way as its abbreviation, and needs a space:

Link: Express, ‘Private Contractors Cost NHS, and Taxpayers, Millions in Botched Operations’

£9million, £3.2million, £33million, £52million; failures […] has

Double-take, # 229

Some time ago, Dr Faustus submitted this shot of a mangle from the printed Radio Times (edition unknown). A search on its website suggests that this mangle occurs quite often in the publication:

The ‘i before e’ issue was addressed by Mangling English in December 2012.

fiesty

Double-take, # 228

Not a description that guarantees effectiveness:

Link: Playepub, ‘Translator’

tanslate