Multimangle, # 56

This does not reflect well on the writer, the education system, or an industry that largely seems to have decided that sub-editors aren’t necessary:

Link: SomersetLive, ‘Crocs are Bad for Your Health Say Experts, as Patients Complain of Heel Pain on Daily Basis’

footwear that are Crocs; [punctuation]

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 232

‘CitizenChip’, who might well hide behind a pseudonym, has mistaken the prepositional verb crack down on for the noun crackdown, both of which take the preposition on, and follows this up with some dubious syntax and a typographical error:

Link: GloucestershireLive

crack down for crackdown; of for on; area for area; [syntax]

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

Double-take, # 239

Dr Faustus spotted this in his local EE shop:

Apologies’; shut from 5:30 tonight we apologise […]; To Our Valued Customers

Multimangle, # 52

Many a mangle in this advertisement for the Fox Inn, Lutterworth:

Link: Rugby Observer, 19 May, 2016, p. 16

resturaunt, extensiver, your'e [+ random capitalization, punctuation & syntax]

Double-take, # 235

A confusion of past forms (with bonus mangled syntax):

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Debtor days are over as BIS calls time on world credit binge’

rang for rung

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

Double-take, # 225

Via Dr Faustus, another eye-watering paragraph from the College of Media and Publishing:

Link: College of Media and Publishing, ‘Do the NCTJ diploma the digital way’

 You cannot be able to get the NCTJ diploma, for a better price, anywhere

Double-take, # 223

The Express apparently driving the point home in February 2016 in this headline (now changed):

Link: The Express, ‘Right-wing fascists bring Liverpool to a standstill as violence erupts’

Later in the report came this gem:

Aside from the omission of the crucial hyphen (and why ‘right-wing’, but not ‘far-right’?), the verb ‘carrying out’ applied to saluting seems very odd, in a way that ‘performing’, or even ‘doing’, might not.

Right-wing fascists; carrying out far right salutes

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, # 47

Dr Faustus reports a sticky space bar at Shakespeare’s Globe (the first instance now corrected on the webpage, although the space seems to have been lifted from the later section on The White Devil, ‘Webster’stragedy’) in a synopsis that also uses revenge in a less than meaningful manner:

Link: Shakespeare’s Globe, ‘Read Not Dead’

Cervantes’influence, andraucously, anepisode, withthe, revenge for avenge

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 228

Today’s seasonal offering brings a range of mangles wrapped a short paragraph and finished with an astoundingly apt typographical slip:

Link: Community Restaurants’ Blog, ‘So how well did Restaurants do this Easter?’

the the; thats; 16830000; Fifty one; holiday themed buffet; in that order respectively; traditional Eater meal

Singular or Plural? # 18

Presently going the rounds online is this confusion of grammatical number. It started so well…

poverty and low pay were […] It was

Multimangle, # 45

From the inbox of Dr Faustus. It started off quite well, but then went very wrong…

What is your name and contact number? Where do you buy your clothes, please list 5 online and high street stops in orderr of preference?

Mangling Meaning, # 36

Dr Faustus has submitted this snapshot from a BBC report which has since been much (and tacitly) rewritten. (The original text is reproduced verbatim here and elsewhere online.) In the second paragraph here, further comments from an expert previously quoted are reported very badly, and the punctuation seems to have been inserted at random:

Link: BBC News, ‘How low can the oil price go – and what is the impact?’

He adds that a great level of unrest might add a geopolitical unrest – and consequent worries about supplies – might push prices higher. But not by much, he says.

Mangling Meaning, # 35

How many people have been arrested? (Headline and subhead have now been carefully rewritten to resolve the confusion.)

Link: The Telegraph, ‘French police “arrest man with guns in suitcase” […]’

Man arrested […] another woman arrested with him

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

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 226

From Dr Faustus comes this slip on the keyboard, preceded by some exceedingly bad syntax:

Link: BBC News, ‘La Familia Mexican drug cartel founder killed’

tears for years; the Christian military order of the Middle Ages of the same name