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 […]

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 114

Dr Faustus found this on a piece of clothing in H&M and was, he says, quite tempted to buy it, but for the apostrophe catastrophe which he could not countenance wearing. The inexplicable dash and the odd motto beneath the main text also offer good reasons to leave it on the rack:

world’s; New— York City; the island of manhattan | city of superlatives

Double-take, # 226

Logically flawed:

Link: The Times, ‘Women Charged More on “Sexist” High Street’

identical children’s scooters are £5 more expensive in pink than in blue

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

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

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 95

I’ve saved this recent submission from Mo Juste for the anniversary of the last time he sent in an example of what may be the mangle that most annoys him:

Link: Udiscover, ‘The Godfathers of British Blues’

Mo Juste comments: ‘I can see that you’d write “You shouldn’t underestimate what Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner…”, but surely “It’s impossible to overestimate what Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner…” is what the writer meant.’

underestimate for overestimate

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 218

Dr Faustus seems to have been doing some online competency tests, and finding various mangles. Today’s include an accidental substitute, some American spelling that seems to have crept onto the global company’s British website, a stray bit of code, and some rather dubious logic:

Source: CEB — SHL Talent Measurement

traveled; causalities for casualties; [+ logic + <]

Multimangle, # 35

Dr Faustus sent this in for the first paragraph’s closing punctuation and the erroneous conjunction in the second, demonstrating carelessness and a failure to proofread before posting. Also notable is the  opening paragraph’s structure:

Link: Cambridge News, ‘Study finds Labour councillors agree with Jeremy Corbyn […]’

Primary and secondary clauses related in this way must have the same subject; however, the subject of the opening, dependent clause here is ‘the clear favourite’ (Corbyn), but the main clause’s subject is ‘the study’. This creates a disjunction between the two syntactical units, and undermines both grammatical and logical sense in literally asserting that the study is the favourite Labour candidate. The details provided, being independent, should be given in separate sentences.

of for or; , for .; Currently the clear favourite to win the Labour leadership election, the study found […]

Multimangle, # 32

From Des Pond of Slough, an omitted letter and an apostrophe that has apparently fallen from its rightful place into a later paragraph:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘The Crystal Maze returns […]’

crowfunding, six months time, it's for its

Multimangle, # 27

A nasty misspelling plus a major mismatch in grammatical logic between the question and answer categories:

Source: Eurostar UK journey satisfaction survey

knowledgable + grammatical mismatch between option subjects & answer categories

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 78

From a smartphone BBC News report comes a missing apostrophe, and a puzzle: why use single quotation marks in the headline and doubles in the subhead? The online version has no subhead, but it too nonsensically varies its quotation marks with singles in the headline and doubles in the body of the piece…

Source: BBC News for smartphone

pounds worth + interchangeable single & double quotation marks

Double-take, # 141

This formulation started appearing some time ago, and is now used widely — but it doesn’t actually say what it means:

Source: BBC News for smartphone, and online: ‘Car smoke ban “to start in October”’

It’s not clear whether this ridiculous phrase was coined by someone in government or a journalist, but since children are not legally allowed to smoke, it’s obvious that smoking with them would also be against the law. Either the construction ‘smoking in cars with children’ needs to conclude with the preposition in, or with should be replaced with a meaningful qualifier, such as containing.

Smoking in cars with children

Mangling Meaning, # 27

A syntactical illogicality results in unintentional and unfortunate humour:

Link: The Guardian, ‘What do doctors say to “alternative therapists” […]’

after he died and was forced to sell the house

Double-take, # 133

Seems improbable:

Link: The Guardian, ‘IPCC investigates alleged student assaults […]’

The journalist’s determination to be pithy has undermined logic: the mismatched syntax in the final section of the sentence results in a statement that exactly reverses the true state of affairs. To avoid such ambiguity, relative clauses should immediately follow the noun they qualify. The reader should not be expected to work out the logic from external knowledge or additional research.

a university that called for the scrapping of tuition fees

Double-take, # 123

This mangle is surprisingly widespread and comes in at least these two variants, but there may be more. The first example is the more common error:

Link: NorthPole.com, Craft Cottage, ‘Poke a Dot Luminaries’

The second is less common, but not hard to find:

Link: Volcom.com, ‘Poker Dot Gloves’

The Oxford English Dictionary shows a pronunciation difference between UK- and US-English:

Spelling errors are thus more likely to be American. The term must, of course, be taught. If the l is not sounded, the correct spelling cannot be deduced from the sound; nor can it be inferred through logic, for, as the Online Etymology Dictionary points out, the connection between polka dots and the polka is arbitrary: the dance was popular and it became fashionable to append the name randomly.

An American company produces a series of ‘Poke-a-Dot’ books, intended to teach counting to young children:

Link: InnovativeKids, Our Products, ‘Poke-A-Dot’

The series title is a great pun; but a pun can be fun and effective only if it is understood as a pun. In practice, this series title is likely to consolidate the misspelling, and it is not impossible that the title is itself based on a misunderstanding of the term.

poke-a-dot; poker dot

Double-take, # 97

Dr Faustus submitted this mangle —

Link: The Past Speaks blog, ‘Perspectives on the Evolution of States, Markets, and Economic Culture’

— with the comment: ‘Well, is it or isn’t it?’ It’s a fair point and I think we should be plainly told.

Two sentences later, I was surprised to learn that the length of the US states is relevant in politics…

Since the entry has been provided specifically ‘for the benefit of […] Canadian readers’, perhaps the term ‘blank cheque’, with its UK spelling, isn’t the most helpful analogy. Or is it?
is isn’t; written constitutions, unlike US states, some of which are very lengthy; ‘blank cheque’ [for Canadian readers?]

Double-take, # 96

From Des Pond of Slough from yesterday’s BBC News website:

The subheading failed to improve matters — rather the reverse, in fact:

As Des says: ‘What does “anniversary” mean?’ Someone at the Beeb noticed or was told, as both mangles had been corrected by 9.35am, but they should never have been there at all.
six-month anniversary

Double-take, # 92

This is well-meant, if oddly couched:

Link: Teach First

Since ‘a day’ relates to time, not place, to use where in this context is completely illogical.

The word child is grammatically both singular and neuter (cf. baby), biologically sexually unspecific and culturally non-gender-specific; it would thus be more correct and more logical to use the pronoun its to represent the noun. If it were being applied to a particular child in a particular context, it could be sexed accordingly. If the noun were made plural, their would make greater sense and be more grammatically sound; it might also increase the the statement’s emphasis. As it is, it reads rather as if their was agreeing in number with parents rather than child.

a day where; no child … their

Double-take, # 89

This is a section of an advertisement that runs regularly in the Rugby Observer:

Link: Rugby Observer, 7 August 2014, p. 2

As an aside, I’ve noticed only recently that the publication has dropped the direct article from its masthead, although I’m almost positive that it used to be shown. The website’s address includes it, and the copyright details also show ‘The Rugby Observer’. The potential broad application of the noun seems to require greater specificity, and it’s certainly customary.

up to a huge £75 minimum

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 130

Another oddity from the inbox of Dr Faustus, who wanders [sic]: ‘Is a last night party male?!’
male party? wonders for wanders