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]

Double-take, # 240

A noun-verb mismatch in the headline is supported by an odd turn of phrase in the subheading, plus a possible eggcorn:

Link: WalesOnline

Box of retro Wales shirts […] are discovered; youth shirts; packages for packaging

You Cannot Be Serious, # 73

From Mo Juste, who comments: ‘It looks like part of the old game show — “rearrange these words into a well known phrase or saying”.’

Link: Northampton Chronicle & Echo

Northampton to restoration of the monarchy in 1660 with Oak Apple Day service

You Cannot Be Serious, # 72

These come via Gary Hazell. The top screenshot is taken of the company’s website (where one of the many mangles has now been corrected), and the other from its Facebook page. A cynic might say the copy had been rushed out to take advantage of circumstances:

Link: PhilosophyFootball.com, ‘Muhammad Ali’

Link: Facebook, PhilosophyFootball, 4 June, 2016, 10:42

WE REMEMBER £5 FROM EACH SHIRT, solidatirty, dinated, suppoters, anti-war, pro Civil Rights; persoinal

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

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 […]

You Cannot Be Serious, # 67

This Telegraph report was scrapped and its address now redirects visitors to a page about bookies’ odds for bets on the weather for Easter 2016, although echoes of the original text still remain online. At the time this snapshot was taken, however, it seemed that the writer was already on vacation:

haolidaymakers

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

Mangling Meaning, # 37

Incoherence verging on utter nonsense from The Express:

Link: The Express, ‘Outrage as Hotel Homes 300 Asylum Seekers — Without Telling Anyone’

asylum seekers have been housed in a major hotel without informing anyone; in what the authorities claim is on the sly

Mangling Meaning, # 34

‘I can’t even begin to make sense of this,’ writes Des Pond of Slough:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘“Mummified” body of adventurer found in abandoned yacht to be identified by sailor’s daughter’

he last heard of him ago on social media for his birthday

Double-take, # 211

An utter mess:

Link: The Sunday Times (subscription access only), ‘First Bite: How We Learn to Eat’

too many employees’ waistline exceeds

Double-take, # 209

This comes from Mo Juste:

Link: Northampton Chronicle & Echo, ‘Historic tree stolen […]’

He comments: ‘The tree, apparently, has a circumference of 4 feet, which would make it about 15 inches in diameter. Accordingly this would mean the front door in the photograph must be about 6 inches wide.’

mathematical mangle: circumference of 4 feet = about 15 inches in diameter = front door must be about 6 inches wide

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

Double-take, # 206

Using countries’ names adjectivally often feels odd and is arguably ungrammatical, and much more so with acronyms… and that’s not even the mangle here!

Link: The Telegraph, ‘The history of Guide Dogs for the Blind’

trained the first-ever UK and

Double-take, # 200

Another mangled on-screen television programme guide entry (see here for an earlier one) for that cult classic series The Avengers. After the — erroneous — substitution of plural for singular in the first sentence, everything becomes very confused indeed:

peoples for people [+ general confusion]

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 106

This comes from the mangle backlog, and seems a suitable running-mate for the unusual apostrophe catastrophe found by Dr Faustus and featured on 29 November, 2015:

Link: The Guardian, ‘Marks & Spencer under fire over online tax arrangements’

M&’s for M&S’s

Not Washed or Cooked, # 251

A mangle in what was overall a rather puzzling notice at Warwick University last term:

prgoress

You Cannot Be Serious, # 50

More from Dr Faustus, who observed a problem with a preposition in this so-called ‘analysis’, by a ‘business correspondent’, of the Bank of England’s accidentally leaked plan to prepare an emergency strategy to leave the European Union. Prepositions, however, appear to be of lesser concern than the overall expression. Much of this ponderously whimsical piece of writing demonstrates problems in selecting logical and harmonious verb forms, while the second paragraph seems confused about whether it is asking or reporting a question:

Link: BBC News, ‘Email mistake reveals Bank of England's EU exit project’

logic & harmony of tenses; First of all we’d ask why do we pay these people to react rather than pre-empt massive outcomes. Secondly it might have already been too late; [&c]

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 183

John Holloway was taken aback to see this mangled template while opening a bank account online:

isn't not yet open yet

Double-take, # 157

The University of Warwick has decided that its TeachHigher initiative is not a good idea after all. Here is the opening sentence of its announcement to that effect, published yesterday:

Link: The University of Warwick – Insite, ‘Update on Teach Higher and VAM Payroll Transitional Project’

the subject of the conditions and pay for postgraduates who teach has been the subject of significant debate