You Cannot Be Serious, # 75

From Dr Faustus:

Source: Just Like Us

homophic

You Cannot Be Serious, # 74

This fairly short piece of text is marked by confusion, due to a failure to proofread before posting — or since: the mangle, submitted by Dr Faustus a month ago was still in place as of this morning — and an absence of any of the hyphens required by the rules of grammar and for the sake of clarity, as well as inconsistency in the positioning of the registered trademark symbol:

Link: Vitae, ‘Vitae Three Minute Thesis competition’

by the until the end of June; Three Minute Thesis competition; Vitae hosted

Double-take, # 238

Someone at this publishing house is clearly trying to follow a pattern, but not all cases fit:

Link: W. W. Norton & Company, ‘Norton Critical Editions’

children literature

Not Washed or Cooked, # 311

This mangle comes, via Dr Faustus, from an examination on the course in Teaching English as a Foreign Language offered by the Centre for Languages & International Education at University College London:

metholodology

Double-take, # 237

Dr Faustus says: ‘Spotted in a fire vehicle displayed at my local primary school.’

when when

Not Washed or Cooked, # 309

From Just Liam comes this mind-boggling mangle. As is isn’t possible to determine how vacancies are uploaded and by whom, the perpetrator is not apparent, although the bonus mangle, from the same page, must certainly be the university’s own text:

Link: Indeed, ‘Instructor or Assistant Professer: UMD Department of History’

Professer; Smoking, chewing tobacco and the use of electronic cigarettes is prohibited

You Cannot Be Serious, # 71

Dr Faustus spots some problematic programming in an automated email from KCL’s IT Services. The syntax is not most logically ordered either:

We informed you that we believe your issued to be resolved on the [insert date]

Not Washed or Cooked, # 308

Smoothly following on from yesterday’s contribution, in which an academic institution used unedited copy to promote a course on editing, today’s mangle was found, by Dr Faustus, on the blog of a journalism website:

Link: Brighton Journalist Works, ‘YOU Magazine to Red, Alumna Emma Laurence’s Journey to Freelance Writing’

Jounalism

Double-take, # 232

This mangled text was found on Oxford University’s website by Arina, who comments: ‘It’s hilarious that this comes from the description of a module on editing.’

Link: University of Oxford Language Centre, ‘English for Academic Studies’

Repetition of copy: ‘Editing your Thesis with Corpora is a short (12-hour) course designed for doctoral students who are at the transfer stage […] This 12-hour intensive course is designed for doctoral students who have passed the transfer stage […].’

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 113

A painful moment at the British Museum:

Source: The British Museum, wall decoration, ‘Francis Towne’s Watercolours of Rome’ exhibition

it’s for its

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, # 224

A hideous mangle, a puzzling preposition, and some repetitive and confusing gerunds, spotted by Dr Faustus:

Link: College of Media and Publishing, Sports Journalism

jurnalism; exciting reading looking; reading [again]; about for by?

Not Washed or Cooked, # 304

Dr Faustus has spotted someone with a sticky space bar (and some super-sibilant acronyms):

Link: University College London [UCL], ‘Call for Papers […]’

Growthin for Growth in

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, # 48

Des Pond of Slough has now taken several online courses, of which the latest, delivered by Future Learn, is ‘From World War to White Heat: the RAF in the Cold War’, a collaboration by Royal Air Force [RAF] Museums and the Department of History at Royal Holloway, University of London, under the guidance of Dr Ross Mahoney, Aviation Historian, RAF Museum, and Dr Emmett Sullivan, Senior Lecturer in History, Royal Holloway.

Des is usually full of praise for these courses, but this one has been dogged by badly-finished written materials. Submitting this example, Des remarks: ‘This is after typos had been pointed out by several people, so this is the corrected version.’

deminished; in for of, & boarders for borders

Not Washed or Cooked, # 299

Today’s mangle was spotted in Elephant & Castle Station by Dr Faustus, in an advertisement for Sir John Cass's Foundation and Red Coat School. This is a puzzling error. Surely, with a repeating pattern like this, the obvious thing to do is check the first set thoroughly and then copy and paste it?

Wednesdy

Double-take, # 217

A typographical error and some hideous syntax, via the inbox of Dr Faustus:

in-tracy; You don’t have to be applying to the employers

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 225

Via Dr Faustus, a sad juxtaposition of vaunting and mangling:

Link: Unreal City Audio, ‘About Us’ page

a cathartic voyages

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 224

Here is another university mangling an announcement for its Teaching Excellence Awards. This one comes via the inbox of Dr Faustus:

lecturers for lectures + syntax