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, # 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

You Cannot Be Serious, # 69

The caption-writer either doesn’t understand the term ‘clockwise’ or needs to learn to check details before posting… This was spotted by Dr Faustus, who explains: ‘If the photos were correctly read clockwise from top left, the bottom two pictures should be swapped over. Result: unintentionally hilarious image of the Mad Hatter as a new X-Man’ — so crossed streams after all?

Link: The Guardian, ‘Scorchers: The Hottest Films of Summer 2016’

misordered caption – X-Men/Alice crossover]

You Cannot Be Serious, # 65

It would seem, and it is confirmed by the webpage’s address, that the writer of this breadcrumb (the first screenshot below) decided that the writer of the headline (the second screenshot) had used the wrong preposition and so changed it, mangling the meaning in a rather hilarious manner. (Neither spells the playwright’s first name with a diaeresis, as he always did.)

Link: The Telegraph, ‘What It’s Like to Live with Noel [sic] Coward’s Garden’

What it’s Like to Live in Noel Coward’s Garden

Double-take, # 205

From the Dr Faustus backlog, here is a lovely bit of confusion from the ITV website:

Link: ITV.com, ‘Louisa Johnson sings her Winner'’s Song — Forever Young’

Louisa Johnson … his version

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, # 153

A caption spotted by Just Nick, featuring one mangle and a humorous ambiguity:

Link: BBC News, ‘The man who cut out his own appendix’

relaxing with one [of] Antarctica’s best known inhabitants [presumably the penguin]