The Wrong Word Entirely, # 110

This mangle, spotted by Dr Faustus, has now been corrected:

Link: BBC News, ‘Alton Towers Smiler Ride Reopens Nine Months After Horror Crash’

insure for ensure

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 108

Des Pond of Slough muses: ‘Ideal for onion-sellers?’

Living France, 299 (April, 2016), p. 13

peddling for pedalling

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 104

A pesky homophone and a bilingual slip, via Des Pond of Slough:

Source: French Property News, 301 (March 2016), p. 57

electoral roll; vehicule for vehicle

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 102

This mangle can be found on one of the banners adorning the Museo Nazionale Romano in Rome, promoting the ‘Once Were Romans’ exhibition. New-found Mangler, who spotted it, points out that, in Italian pronunciation, the correct English translation and this erroneous word would be almost homophonous:

leaps for lips

You Cannot Be Serious, # 66

This writer seems to be mixing up very different literary personae:

Link: Cosmopolitan, ‘26 things you didn’t know about Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’

hyde for hide

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 101

Unjust and incorrect!

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

fair for fare

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 97

Another pesky homophone (and a confused title):

Link: The Guardian, ‘In challenging homophobia, gay men have become our own oppressors’

routes for roots

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 96

A moment’s aberration, a pesky homophone or a rather ineffectual eggcorn? Now corrected, as is the original URL based on it:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘“I could walk around starkers if I wanted to […]”’

peace of mind

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]

Multimangle, # 38

Dr Faustus has found this piece of prose, which mangles grammar, syntax, punctuation and meaning:

Link: Generator, ‘More than a hostel’

your for you’re; shifting perspective; syntax; spacing

Multimangle, # 30

From Des Pond of Slough comes this extract, featuring an apostrophe catastrophe, a homophone and an unusual, if unmangled, description of a traditional menu item:

Link: The Rugby Register, North and Villages edition, advertisement for The Shoulder of Mutton, p. 37

bite’s for bites; fayre for fare; [soup of the moment]

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 210

This meme, complete with homophonous mangle and random capitalization, is presently doing the rounds on Facebook, and seems an appropriate way for Mangling English to celebrate the season:

too for to; random capitalization

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 93

Foxed by a homophone? Via Dr Faustus:

Link: TimeOut London, review of Our Country’s Good

course for coarse

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 91

Not actually a homophone, and definitely not the right word, as spotted by John Holloway in a mangle for which he chose the caption: ‘Interesting evening activities in Plymouth?’ The first picture shows the object described and part of the mangled sign; the second displays the mangle in full:

carousal for carousel

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 206

John Holloway finds a homophonous mangle in a manufacturer’s survey. Some quotation marks seem to have escaped too:

here for hear; quotation marks missing

Double-take, # 196

Des Pond of Slough feels there’s some homophonous confusion here and I’m inclined to agree:

Source: ‘Great Rail Journeys — The Magic of Sicily tour’, CSMA Club Life magazine (November/December 2015, p. 89)

sight for site

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 90

Via Dr Faustus, a pesky homophone in a theatre review:

Link: TimeOut, review of Our Country’s Good

course for coarse

Double-take, # 187

An unfortunate homophonous mangle, submitted by Dr Faustus. The error has been corrected on the BBC’s webpage, but Google shows that echoes still remain:

duel for dual

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 88

Another homophonic mix-up from Dr Faustus:

Link: BBC News, ‘South Africa train crash […]’

The BBC’s error, as so often, has been widely disseminated on the Internet.
stationery for stationary

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 87

Dr Faustus has submitted this homophonic mangle, which is a fairly common error and which the blog has featured a few times. There is also a split infinitive, which some find inelegant at best, and the clarity of ‘support shirts’ seems dubious — support stockings I’ve heard of, but not shirts:

Link: The Huffington Post, ‘School Backtracks After Suspending Student […]’

principle for principal; support shirts; to automatically expel