Double-take, # 248

The mangled headline is just the beginning:

Link: Rugby Adverttiser

[headline but no report, or pictures, or anything]

Double-take, # 243

A mangled headline precedes and presages further mangling. In fact, the adverb in the report’s first paragraph, flagged by red text, is included as a variant form by Merriam-Webster, though not by British-English dictionaries. The report’s second paragraph is included here only to add colour:

Link: Daily Record and Sunday Mail

Colvend women accident sets fire; accidently

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

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

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 101

Unjust and incorrect!

Link: The New Times [Rwanda], ‘Cashless Bus Fair System Should Be Made Optional’

fair for fare

Not Washed or Cooked, # 303

Gary Hazell spotted this on Facebook:

Link: Facebook.com, The Swindonian

The headline is correct on the website, but its address suggests this is where the error originated:

librarires

Not Washed or Cooked, # 302

Via Mo Juste, this is not a rarely-mangled word, but the form of the mangle is uncommon:

Link: Northampton Chronicle & Echo, ‘Werid Menagerie of Impossible on Stage’

Werid for weird

Double-take, # 213

Rookie news reporters might usefully be given a list of potential pitfalls (as well as lessons in how to write effective and pithy headlines). This mangle should be on it:

Link: Southern Daily Echo, ‘Ringwood man taken to court for putting his feet on a train seat between Ellesmere Port and Hooton in Liverpool’

bye-law [+ headline]

Not Washed or Cooked, # 275

This mangle, from Dr Faustus, has been neither spell-checked nor proofread — but is very large:

Link: PinkNews, ‘Watch: Straight guys are now making out with eachother to spite Kim Davis’

eachother

Not Washed or Cooked, # 261

This seems a novel way of avoiding the ‘i before e’ problem:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Motorist fined after council workers lifted her car onto double yellows’

recevied

Not Washed or Cooked, # 255

The mangled place-name has featured before; the adverb is making its debut. It seems more likely that the subheading was composed by a sub-editor than the comment-article writer; in either case it’s substandard:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘This is why “Pension Isas” would be a disaster’

seriosuly; Britian

Double-take, # 182

A redoubled prepositional mangle in this headline:

Link: Hereford Times, ‘Hereford dog believed […]’

to be added and removed to banned breed list

Double-take, # 167

Just Liam is understandably puzzled by the use of the verb in this newspaper placard in York:

The idea of spontaneity, which requires the construction ‘catches fire’, seems here to have been confused with the idea of agency, ‘is set on fire’. Oxford Dictionaries (fire, 11) confirms that the use of ‘set’ in relation to ‘fire’ needs both a specific preposition and an object, either in the form of ‘set fire to something’ or ‘set something on fire’.

The publication that issued the placard is simply called The Press. The wording is not replicated at the top of the online story, where there is no headline at all, but instead a rather odd and archaic sweep of key points (with rather odd and archaic random capitalization) separated by dashes:

Link: The Press, ‘Bus fire in York […]’

bus engine sets on fire

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 80

This subheading compounds its confusing mangle with confusing syntax, but clarity of expression could be achieved by a simple restructuring — easily done via cut-and-paste:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘NHS wasting millions on expensive hip replacements’

basis for basics

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 74

Contributed by Mo Juste, who said rather sadly, ‘I despair…’ — as well he might.

Link: Northampton Chronicle & Echo, ‘Artwork commemorate’s [sic] Northampton’s shoe history’

commemorate’s

Not Washed or Cooked, # 203

The John Holloway backlog continues with a typographical error (source not supplied) that would have been picked up by a spell-checking routine and/or proofreading. It‘s quite large!

venner for veneer

Not Washed or Cooked, # 197

From last month’s news:

Link: The Greeneville Sun, ‘Former Tobacco Warehouse Leveled In Early-A.M. Balze [sic]’

A similar typographical error lurks here, in a news item from 2013:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Firefighters tackle 'volcano' balze [sic] as mulch fire burns in Maryland’

balze for blaze

Double-take, # 111

Here’s a mangle from yesterday’s Guardian. It’s an article headline, ‘the one part you’d think they’d get right,’ comments contributor Mo Juste. Given the generous print size, it is indeed surprising that no-one noticed before it was too late:

Source: The Guardian, ‘The time has come time to slow down immigration’, ‘Journal’ section, p. 33

The headline of the online version seems not to have contained the error, even on initial publication.
The time has come time to slow down immigration

Double-take, # 99

On the face of it, this headline is offering bad advice:

Sources: The Sunday Times, ‘Money’ section, 7 September 2014, p. 6

The online version makes more sense:

Link: The Sunday Times

Not the same message at all.
Don’t write a will, all you’re likely to leave behind is confusion

Double-take, # 98

Pop Spencer has sent in another oddly-phrased headline:

Link: Northampton Chronicle and Echo, ‘One in five […]

He commented: ‘When I saw this headline my first thought was that the patients had been slapped around a bit, or taken out to the pub. Anything but what was expected. Or am I wrong?’

patients not treated as expected within 62 days of diagnosis