Multimangle, # 55

Another unsolicited email, with a rather naive subject line, from the inbox of Dr Faustus:

write you; no for not; 30mins; if you have interest in know what the job entails [omitted articles; comma splices]

Multimangle, # 53

A veritable cornucopia of mangles!

Link: Honeywell VT117 Traditional Flow Radiator Thermostat, ‘Installation and User Instruction’ leaflet

temerature, guideance, decorators cap, cle-aning, sea-ting, seperate

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

Other Englishes, # 5

This from Just Liam, who remarks: ‘I can’t comment on the translation, but come on! Get a native English-speaking person to proofread!’ Some of the errors here, such as the use of the conditional mood where the future tense is needed, are not uncommon among those taught English in Asia; others, such as the misused apostrophe, are not uncommon among those taught English in England… Some of the errors, however, are more puzzling:

The translation on the front label is not entirely satisfactory either:

thefinest; pour into boiling water on the proportion; would for will; it’s for its; poer for pour; ‘soup’!; served repeatedly for 3–5 times; avoid a long time infusion; Chinese Famous Tea

Other Englishes, # 4

I’m guessing that the writer of this spam email is not a native speaker of English, but I can’t decide quite how this range of mangles, spanning subject line to sign-off, has arisen:

you get new tax refund from GOV, You'are, An payment, King Regards

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

Multimangle, # 33

Received by a surprised Dr Faustus, who barely knows where to start (mangle-wise, that is), but is especially taken by the use of apostrophes, which certainly does ‘look unusual for’ him…

O’k; embroider for embroidery; It may look unusual foryou; I live in a small city. but I would like to see the world; I love to walk around the pair; foto; Now, I’m end

Other Englishes, # 3

These rather mangled instructions, submitted by Dr Faustus, come with Apachie brand bluetooth sports headphones:

alternativley; audiable; either devices

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

Other Englishes, # 2

Following on from yesterday’s scam email, here is a second, showing another familiar set of errors, such as stilted syntax, the omission of direct and indirect articles, or use of an incorrect article, and the omission of a letter at the end of a word that results in a spell-checker appeasing preposition instead of the intended noun:

missing/incorrect articles (Natwest Online Banking team; introduce new much secured …] process; you are the member of our online banking); simple for filling procedure; you can get advantage

Other Englishes, # 1

The first of two days of lovely scam emails. Such scams are another reason (if one were needed) to teach, learn and use good English, and to read properly instead of skim, so that recipients can determine when they are being scammed; this is especially important when scammers’ offerings are made to look convincing with logos and apparently official email addresses:

As is often the case, the key errors in this email are verb tenses and grammatical number, although there are some odd prepositions here too, and ’prevent’ has been used as if it were a direct synonym of ’protect’.

by for from [x2]; introduce for [has] introduced; prevent for protect; restore for restored; remove for removed; field for fields

Double-take, # 177

As Des Pond of Slough points out, the rather odd product name is only the beginning of the delights of this box of goodies, which he spotted in a Coventry branch of Aldi. Particularly noteworthy are the description of the product (at the lower right of the display packaging) and the rather strange wording in the circular flag next to the cowboy on the product box:

snack’n play [or snack’ n play?]; check backside for more fun; Hazelnuts spread and breadsticks with surprise

Now Try It In English, # 3

From the email (and backlog) of Dr Faustus:

your account has been disabled considered a problem […] please follow the stages of being able to return to your account […] Shopping worldwide hassle free […]. Please follow the steps To Update Your account limited now

Double-take, # 135

I’m guessing this has not been written by a native English speaker, though I’m not familiar with the particular grammatical oddities here from my own experience of mangles in international/second-language English. In addition, Bart’s surname — a key element of the whole website — is spelt correctly only when in the form of a link (copied and pasted?), although its mangled form is flagged as incorrect by standard spell-checking dictionaries:

Link: Wikisimpsons, ‘Bart Simpon [sic] Comic Book Kon’

Bart Simpon (++); was a the; found out at Bart; has a own comic book; also an own action figures

Double-take, # 109

William Shelton sends this, remarking: ‘Someone in marketing obviously skipped a lesson in English before creating the name of this Brazilian condom.’

Link: Sex Free Preservativos

In a secondary twist, the name also manages to imply that the company will be giving the product away…

Sex Free Preservativos

Double-take, # 106

Spotted on his trawls through ebay by Des Pond of Slough:

Link: ebay.co.uk, ‘Hunter 1/350 W35046 Wood deck HMS Dreadnought for Trumpeter’

Batteship for battleship; & many more

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 108

Source: supposedly personalized page from email link

Hmmm… No, I think I’ll just blacklist you.

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 30

A not very unprofessional scam attempt via email:

Handritten, # 2

Spotted in Spon Street, Coventry, by Just Liam, further evidence of the English language’s cruelty to non-native speakers:

Not Washed or Cooked, # 74

Offering a pleasing segue from yesterday’s focal word, this page spells accommodation correctly (in the main text, if not, in fact, in its URL), but displays problems elsewhere, such as the penultimate sentence here:

Link: Abant İzzet Baysal Üniversitesi, Campus Accommodation

The page’s closing sentence needed spell-checking too:

I shan’t engage with the various grammatical issues, because they aren’t mangles in the same sense as they would be for a writer whose first language was English. However, this is not to say that it’s acceptable for a professional website to contain errors, and not using a spell-checker is inexcusable.