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, # 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

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]

You Cannot Be Serious, # 70

While we’re on the topic of dental care, here is a puzzling choice of adjective — twice:

therapeutic taste

You Cannot Be Serious, # 68

It was going so well, but then the writer chose an adjectival construction instead of negating the verb, and it all went horribly wrong…

Source: Times Higher Education, 2253 (5—11May, 2016), p. 4

drones can carry only a small payload, let alone […]

Mangling Meaning, # 38

Via Dr Faustus, meaning is much mangled by a failure (throughout the report) to use the required initial capital letter for the adjective. The odd punctuation in the opening sentence is a bonus:

Link: BBC News

catholic for Catholic; Chief Constable, George Hamilton, says

Double-take, # 226

Logically flawed:

Link: The Times, ‘Women Charged More on “Sexist” High Street’

identical children’s scooters are £5 more expensive in pink than in blue

Multimangle, # 50

Spotted by Tim Matter at The Phene in south-west London comes this polite notice, complete with idiosyncratic spelling and a final sentence that seems to have lost its way:

noisey; derrier; those wanting a cheeky cigarette after 10pm, please do so quietly without your drinks

You Cannot Be Serious, # 63

Dr Faustus thinks this may be less money than it looks:

Link: BBC News, NI’s top lawyer to join “gay cake” case’

£500 pounds

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

Double-take, # 222

Dr Faustus received an email from Xi’an Jiaotong–Liverpool University, inviting him to study in China. It concludes with a paragraph containing an unwieldy prepositional clause — a frequently ill-used construction — which is further compromised by an adverb that does not very precisely communicate its meaning, although placing it after the verb might have improved matters:

purely taught in English; unwieldy prepositional clause

Double-take, # 221

From MrsX comes this now-corrected (but still badly-phrased and badly-punctuated) gem:

Link: University of York PUBlic Seminar

Each talk will be 10 minutes long containing no talk or equations

Multimangle, # 41

From the backlog of Dr Faustus, who described it as ‘a dubious charity pitch letter’:

one of our fundraiser; work for the orphans, people living under the poverty; increasing the number of pupil; a grand success; also works along with helping people with Alzheimer’s and supporting those that care for Alzheimer’s disease; teaming up with us by cooperating to reach our goals

Double-take, # 215

An initial capital might help, replacing ‘your’ with ‘a’ would be better; doing both and inserting a relevant noun (‘degree’, perhaps, or ‘course’) would be best of all…

your master’s dissertation

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 91

Not actually a homophone, and definitely not the right word, as spotted by John Holloway in a mangle for which he chose the caption: ‘Interesting evening activities in Plymouth?’ The first picture shows the object described and part of the mangled sign; the second displays the mangle in full:

carousal for carousel

Double-take, # 199

Vice Commodore Pugwash spotted this notice by a fire alarm at the Defence Academy, and is justly amazed by ‘glass which knows who is authorised to break it!’

Only authorised persons able to break glass

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, # 193

Mo Juste is understandably puzzled by the relation between this praise-filled TripAdvisor review and its title — and that’s before arriving at the mangle and the ambiguous final sentence:

Link: TripAdvisor, Review of Shajahan, ‘Never fails to disappoint’

Never fails to disappoint; Restuarant; The phal and vindaloo are just right if you like your spice and are not too hot

Double-take, # 192

Just Liam found a multilingual mangle in Tesco, and comments: ‘Maybe they’re taking their motto of “every little helps” a bit too seriously.’ At least the noun is plural in the French version, but ‘en poudre’ implies dried into powder form (for instance, lait en poudre is powdered milk), which is clearly not the case with noodles, and where the apostrophe comes from is anyone’s guess. Then there’s the rather odd adjective beneath, whose meaning is not very clear: 

The prefix ‘un-’ (to indicate that they haven’t been) would seem more appropriate than ‘non-’; but the point is superfluous, since it seems unlikely that fried noodles could be dried.

Dried Noodle; noodles en poud’re; non-fried