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

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, # 217

A typographical error and some hideous syntax, via the inbox of Dr Faustus:

in-tracy; You don’t have to be applying to the employers

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 110

From Dr Faustus:

Link: LSE Political Theory Graduate Conference 2015

years’ for year’s

Multimangle, # 35

Dr Faustus sent this in for the first paragraph’s closing punctuation and the erroneous conjunction in the second, demonstrating carelessness and a failure to proofread before posting. Also notable is the  opening paragraph’s structure:

Link: Cambridge News, ‘Study finds Labour councillors agree with Jeremy Corbyn […]’

Primary and secondary clauses related in this way must have the same subject; however, the subject of the opening, dependent clause here is ‘the clear favourite’ (Corbyn), but the main clause’s subject is ‘the study’. This creates a disjunction between the two syntactical units, and undermines both grammatical and logical sense in literally asserting that the study is the favourite Labour candidate. The details provided, being independent, should be given in separate sentences.

of for or; , for .; Currently the clear favourite to win the Labour leadership election, the study found […]

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 109

In the second paragraph of this submission from Dr Faustus, the quotation marks used to distinguish the play’s title have collided problematically with a possessive apostrophe. The preposition used (twice) with ‘divorce’ in the first paragraph seems ill-chosen too:

Link: TimeOut, ‘Controversial author Rachel Cusk reshapes Euripides’s “Medea” in her own image’

‘Medea’s; divorce with

Multimangle, # 34

This is horribly mangled:

Link: Medievalists.net, ‘Why Tolkien’s Beowulf is an “amazing book but a terrible translation”’

“a horrible, horrible, horrible translation” one that; The translation was made by Tolkien in the 1920s and intended it to be “crib notes” that was to be used

Double-take, # 208

Via Dr Faustus, and not a very promising start:

Source: Catrine Carpenter, Teach Yourself: Beginner’s French (London: Hodder Headline, 2003), p. vii

In addition to the overlooked duplication, the sentence includes a unhappy choice of lexis: an if where, as Cambridge Dictionaries Online confirms, the preferred conjunction in a situation offering alternatives linked with or is whether.

course course; if … or

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 107

Spotted by Dr Faustus in the shop rebranded as Waterstone’s in 2010 and then, in 2012, re-rebranded (or possibly un-rebranded) back to Waterstones. Apostrophe confusion is clearly a core concept at the company:

CV’s

Double-take, # 207

An apostrophe catastrophe and a strange choice of preposition:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Protein World […] more sexist than ever’

its for it's & between for during

Double-take, # 202

How can any professional writer think that a singular verb might be appropriate here? (The article’s title seems short of a possessive pronoun, too.)

Link: The Sunday Times, ‘Money’ section, ‘At 95, I’m fighting the NHS to fund wife’s care’

millions of pounds has [+ title: At 95, I’m fighting the NHS to fund wife’s care]

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 102

The apostrophe’s absence seems somehow worsened by the inclusion of a possessive intensifier:

Link: Halfords, ‘Winter Demister Bundle’

your vehicles own heating system

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.

Double-take, # 191

The preposition in this title is superfluous since the book (spotted in Aldi, as I recall) is about cooking for one’s friends and not, as the phrasing implies, having them round to help prepare food:

An internet trawl reveals that many compilers have use this title or some variation of it, but British-English and US-English dictionaries confirm that the verb takes a direct object.

Entertaining with Friends

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 99

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

career’s for careers

Multimangle, # 26

The stone circle alluded to here certainly predates the apostrophe, and the name applied to it may well do, but the modern signage at the site does not and apostrophes consistently appear in the name on the official website (of which more tomorrow). It is also not apparent why the name here is treated as a plural when ‘The Rollright Stones’ — equally plural to the naked eye — takes singular verb forms on the website (where this name does not appear as a subject); nor why the superfluous singular subject noun in the first paragraph on the sign is treated as if plural:

Kings Men

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 193

This mangle from Dr Faustus shows a mispositioned space resulting in nonsensical text, despite the fact that the words exist. Some might find the use, in the same sentence, of a singular noun with plural pronoun and verb to be on the borderline of grammatical acceptability as notional agreement:

Link: Channel 5, Suspects

behind the mall the way; team show

Double-take, # 167

Just Liam is understandably puzzled by the use of the verb in this newspaper placard in York:

The idea of spontaneity, which requires the construction ‘catches fire’, seems here to have been confused with the idea of agency, ‘is set on fire’. Oxford Dictionaries (fire, 11) confirms that the use of ‘set’ in relation to ‘fire’ needs both a specific preposition and an object, either in the form of ‘set fire to something’ or ‘set something on fire’.

The publication that issued the placard is simply called The Press. The wording is not replicated at the top of the online story, where there is no headline at all, but instead a rather odd and archaic sweep of key points (with rather odd and archaic random capitalization) separated by dashes:

Link: The Press, ‘Bus fire in York […]’

bus engine sets on fire

You Cannot Be Serious, # 43

This substitution of an adverb for a relative pronoun reads oddly:

Link: The Sunday Times, ‘Healthcare system is in need of a cure’

to where for to which

Double-take, # 137

Ugly grammar:

Link: The Guardian, ‘Police from several UK forces seek details of Charlie Hebdo readers’

Since the customer is deemed human (‘who’), why not the newsagent? (Compare butcher, baker, candlestick-maker &c.) The relative pronoun ‘that’ would be correct were the writer referring to the business, but in that case ‘newsagent’ would need to take the possessive form — ‘a newsagent’s that’ — in which the possession, ‘shop’, is idiomatically omitted.

a newsagent that