Apostrophe catastrophe, # 111

Running since 1950, and discussed regularly in the news, this radio soap’s title is The Archers…

Link: The Telegraph, ‘The Archer’s [sic] domestic abuse plot […]’

The Archer’s

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 215

Given that it is reproduced all over the internet, it isn’t easy to work out where this mangle originated, but this recipe — usually marked ‘Recipe courtesy of Juan Rivas’ — has been copied verbatim, as these examples suggest:

Link: Food Network, ‘Grilled Pork Lion with Garlic Rosemary Marinade’

Link: Cooking Channel, ‘Grilled Pork Lion with Garlic Rosemary Marinade’

pork lion

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 109

In the second paragraph of this submission from Dr Faustus, the quotation marks used to distinguish the play’s title have collided problematically with a possessive apostrophe. The preposition used (twice) with ‘divorce’ in the first paragraph seems ill-chosen too:

Link: TimeOut, ‘Controversial author Rachel Cusk reshapes Euripides’s “Medea” in her own image’

‘Medea’s; divorce with

Not Washed or Cooked, # 257

Submitted by Dr Faustus. There is no glory in spelling something correctly only most of the time, especially if you‘re professing expertise in it, and while not all proper nouns are included in spell-checking dictionaries, this one certainly is! There also seems to be indecision or conflict about the inclusion of a preposition in the course title:

Link: King’s College London, ‘MA [in] Shakespeare Studies’

Shakepeare; MA Shakespeare Studies/MA in Shakespeare Studies/

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 97

On sale, and spotted by Des Pond of Slough, in the shop at the Heritage Motor Centre Motor Museum in Gaydon:

First Mini’s at Longbridge

You Cannot Be Serious, # 45

Mo Juste was trying to research famous birthdays for 27 May, and he came upon this:

Link: The Famous People, Famous People Born On May 27th

Mo Juste was surprised. He hadn’t realized that what Wikipedia describes as an ‘English comedian and television personality’ was in fact an American film producer who had died in 1999, and he was sure that the English celebrity spelt his forename with only one ‘l’.

Further investigation revealed that someone had mixed up the English Alan (one-ell) Carr with the American Allan (two-ells) Carr, famous for the film Grease:

Link: Aveleyman, Allan Carr

Mo Juste clicked the link, and discovered that the erroneous photograph is credited to a Twitter account (a bit of a clue there, one would think) called ‘Chattyman’ (another clue since Alan Carr: Chatty Man is the name of Alan (one-ell) Carr’s chat show):

Link: The Famous People | Film & Theater Personalities | Allan Carr — Biography

All in all, an own-goal for The Famous People — Society for Recognition of Famous People.
Alan Carr’s picture in Allan Carr’s biography

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 77

Another pesky homophone — twice! — and the film title’s article seems to have fallen off too:

May the Forth

Not Washed or Cooked, # 225

An insensitive typographical error spotted by Dr Faustus:

Link: The Guardian, ‘Sir Christopher Bayly obituary’

The headline formulation is sloppy too: ‘obituary’ either needs to be made a content-type heading (Sir Christopher Bayly: Obituary or Obituary: Sir Christopher Bayly) or the text rephrased to make the term sound less like part of the man’s name (Obituary of Sir Christopher Bayly) — and when did academic professional titles cease to take initial capitals?

profressor

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 169

From the inbox of Dr Faustus, who comments: ‘I’m pretty sure Imelda Staunton would be horrified to see her name mangled thus!’ Indeed, it is a major mangle to inflict on a famous actress. Perhaps her next Ethel Merman revival role should be Call Me Madam…

To be fair, LondonTheatreDirect.com have managed to spell the name correctly online.
Stanton for Staunton

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 157

A cover of that perennial Cliff Richard Christmas favourite…

Link: AllMusic.com, Various Artists, Just Like Cliff Richard.
Cf. VirginMedia, Just Like Cliff Richard,Various Artists

I shan‘t even begin to consider why anyone would feel the need to record and release a slew of tracks apparently in the style of (‘just like’) Cliff Richard when all the tracks can be easily obtained in a recording by someone you’ve heard of, i.e. the actual Cliff Richard.

‘Mistletoe and Wind’

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 57

Another mangled recruitment email, courtesy of Dr Faustus:

In addition to the apostrophe catastrophe, the email has mangled the town’s name which — a quick check on Google confirms — should read Stratford-upon-Avon.

distributor’s for distributors; Stratford Upon Avon

You Cannot Be Serious, # 25

This — another from Teach First — is an example of the kind of grammatical idiocy that ensues when logical relative clause formation is abandoned:

Link: Teach First, ‘Why we exist’

The writer clearly recognizes that using a zero relative clause has compromised coherence, but attempts to restore syntactical logic, and thus unambiguous meaning, by inserting a comma in the gap left by the omitted relative pronoun (that). In addition to being grammatically dubious (at best), the statement’s impact has been weakened since the comma interrupts the movement from the first clause to the second, thus disconnecting them, where the relative pronoun would underline the relationship between the clauses.

Zero relative clauses are occurring ever more frequently in various kinds of writing, and can even be found in formal scholarly compositions at various levels. However, it is apparent that clarity of expression and effective communication of sense are not their primary motivation; on the contrary, both are often undermined. It would seem that zero relative clauses have escaped from the world of journalism, where every word counts because it is counted. They have no place in education at any level.

Incidentally, it has taken me some days to work out that Teach First is called ‘Teach First’ —

— and not, as its prominent logo suggests, ‘TeachFirst’:

zero relative clause: so poor, providing; Teach First or TeachFirst

Not Washed or Cooked, # 150

The text with this link, found on Facebook a few days ago, mangles the king’s name:

Source: link breadcrumb to The Guardian review

The review’s sub-heading (now) spells the name correctly, but a Google search shows that it was the origin of the misspelling.

Note: if you’re wondering about immersive, read Matt Petronzio’s explanation.

Malcom

Double-take, # 69

New-found Mangler was made very cross on Sunday by the Guardian’s thoroughly mangled report on the Pope’s visit to Bethlehem:

Link: The Guardian, ‘Pope Francis offers prayers at Israeli separation wall in Bethlehem’

I can’t imagine the Vatican being very pleased — the Frances spelling generally applies only to girls and the medieval ‘Pope Joan’ myth is still taken as gospel by the credulous — and indeed the errors have now been corrected, but the Internet is an unforgiving place, and remembers earlier versions:

Link: Google Search "Security was light. Frances"

It may be a while before the journalist in question lives this one down…
Pope Francis and Frances

Double-take, # 52

Someone on the database team seems very confused over this author’s name (and gender):

Link: Amazon, Stephane Audoin-Rouzeau, Men at War 1914—1918 […]

The shortcomings of optical character recognition explain (but do not excuse) Sta(c)Phane and St Phane, but Stephanie remains a puzzle.Stephanie Audoin-Rouzeau; Sta(c)Phane Audoin-Rouzeau; St Phane Audoin-Rouzeau for Stephane Audoin-Rouzeau

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 29

Quite difficult to decide which category these belong in. Submitted by John Holloway, they are not quite mangling English as such, but certainly mangling in English!

Link: BBC iPlayer, 15 Minute Drama, ‘The Tale of Mr Toad’

(No link supplied)

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 75

Des Pond of Slough sends this:

Link: BBC News, Eyewitness

and comments: ‘I could be a Social Affairs Correspondent. Hang on, that’s not a job title: he’s a Social affairs correspondent. Friendly, adulterous and communicative, in that order?’

It’s a fair point. Capitalization seems to be becoming random, yet the dozen or so grammar sites I’ve checked this morning agree that a job title relating to a specific person and role, following the person’s name and identifying the capacity is which that person is operating in the immediate circumstances (e.g., John Cross, Features Editor), should be capitalized, whereas the term used to describe a working role more broadly (John Cross is a features editor or John Cross is the features editor) should not.

It makes sense: this is, after all, related to the issue of common and proper nouns. In the case of the fictitious John Cross, the compound noun in John Cross is the features editor is a generic descriptor of a role, and thus a common noun; while the construction John Cross, Features Editor presents Features Editor as a formal job title and a proper noun.

In today’s example, Michael Buchanan is writing not in his private capacity, but specifically in his role as Social Affairs Correspondent for BBC News, and so should use capitals. If the byline offered a descriptor instead of a formal job title (Michael Buchanan is a/the social affairs correspondent for BBC News), capitals would not be appropriate.

This is something that a spell-checker cannot correct…