The Wrong Word Entirely, # 60

An old favourite in a new setting:

Source: London Evening Standard, 11 August, 2014, p. 5. Also online

I’d like to believe that this is simply a typographical error (heinous enough), but (as I've said in a previous post) I hear so many people say ‘bought’ when they mean ‘brought’  — though not the other way round so far — that it seems to be a genuine, if incomprehensible, misuse of words. I’ve yet to discover how such people deal with other tenses (‘buy’ for ‘bring’?).

More pertinent here, and what prevents this mangle simply repeating an earlier one, is that the verb seems erroneous: can someone bring a tribunal?

bought for brought

Double-take, # 103

A syntactical nightmare:

Source: London Evening Standard, 11 August, 2014, p. 19. Link: online version

This is so badly phrased that it is possible to interpret it as a description of a pair of coincidental events instead of events connected as cause and effect.

The key error here is the incorrect use of the simple past instead of the pluperfect (often now called past perfect) form that is needed to demonstrate the temporal logic and relation of events. This kind of elision or oversimplification of tenses is increasing in British-English writing, perhaps influenced by films, television programmes and books from the USA, where it has been common for some time.

A ‘that’ after ‘signs’ to mark the beginning of the relative clause would also aid comprehension.

after doctors failed to spot signs he suffered a stroke