Double-take, # 248

The mangled headline is just the beginning:

Link: Rugby Adverttiser

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

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, # 247

At a time when every online report and article must be illustrated, however unpictorial the subject, here is a recent (and mangled) attempt to represent visually the news report ‘Sheffield Posties to Go on Strike this Weekend’:

Link: The Star (Sheffield)

caption (& picture of a hand) ‘posting many letters to red british [sic] postbox on street’, illustrating postal workers strike

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 232

‘CitizenChip’, who might well hide behind a pseudonym, has mistaken the prepositional verb crack down on for the noun crackdown, both of which take the preposition on, and follows this up with some dubious syntax and a typographical error:

Link: GloucestershireLive

crack down for crackdown; of for on; area for area; [syntax]

Double-take, # 245

This is not an adjective:

Link: South Hams Gazette, ‘Dog Alerts Dartmouth Family to Fridge-freezer Blaze’

hero for heroic

Double-take, # 244

It isn’t clear whether the mangle in this breadcrumb, leading to a report whose headline uses the correct word, is typographical or grammatical, but its first word is definitely not a noun:

Link: Hereford Times, ‘Hereford Teenager Jailed for Online Sex Offences’

Teenage jailed

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

Multimangle, # 54

Dubious grammar and punctuation:

Link: The Scotman, ‘Scots Students Losing out to English at Home Universities’

number … are + punctuation

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 231

Clearly a mistype here, although arguably the word that should have been typed isn’t quite what’s meant either:

Link: The Scotman, ‘Edinburgh Man Accused of Mock Crucifixion of Co-worker’

complaint for compliant [but arguably compliant not right either]

Double-take, # 242

As Mo Juste points out, ‘This does rather sound like a large and dangerous bag is at large.’ It is hard to see how the bag is significant enough to feature in the headline at all, much less in prime position (it appears near the end of the report, as part of a description of the miscreant), but, as it stands, a hyphen might improve matters:

Link: Northampton Chronicle & Echo

Hessian bag carrying man sexually assaulted woman

Double-take, # 241

The mangles are bad enough, but given that Paris was submerged at the time (3 June, 2016) and the Louvre was sending key pieces offsite for safety, the verb ‘flood’ seems ill-chosen:

Link: Mirrorspectrum, ‘Media Blackout As France Witnesses Biggest Revolution in 200 Years’

protestor for protestors; The first collaborative protest against the Socialist government since Hollande came to power in 2012, kicked off on 9 March

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

Not Washed or Cooked, # 312

A glaring mangle in a large font in a display box — you’d have thought someone would have noticed in time:

Source: Towpath Talk, 127 (May 2016), p. 21

reasaonble

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

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 115

Dr Faustus is unimpressed by the persistent misuse of apostrophes in this press release:

Link: ResponseSource Press Release Wire

CV’s (x3)

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

Not Washed or Cooked, # 310

Via Dr Faustus:

Link: The Independent, ‘Procrastination Makes You More Creative, Research Says’

procratisnation

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 230

Is this mangle a slip or an eggcorn? It comes from an item entirely based on an examination of posts on social media, a cheap, lazy and unsatisfactory method of ‘reporting’ that has now become ubiquitous:

Link: The Express, ‘Paxman Praised for Shining Light on REAL EU but Europhiles Complain of “BBC BIAS”’

bias for biassed/biased

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 109

A very odd use of a word here, in a sentence whose grammar is also dubious:

Source: Rugby Observer, ‘Violent Attacker to be Deported after Prison’ (19 May, 2016), p. 9; and online

suspect remains outstanding [+hoped that he may still be identified]

Multimangle, # 52

Many a mangle in this advertisement for the Fox Inn, Lutterworth:

Link: Rugby Observer, 19 May, 2016, p. 16

resturaunt, extensiver, your'e [+ random capitalization, punctuation & syntax]