Double-take, # 248

The mangled headline is just the beginning:

Link: Rugby Adverttiser

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

Multimangle, # 55

Another unsolicited email, with a rather naive subject line, from the inbox of Dr Faustus:

write you; no for not; 30mins; if you have interest in know what the job entails [omitted articles; comma splices]

Double-take, # 228

Not a description that guarantees effectiveness:

Link: Playepub, ‘Translator’

tanslate

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

Multimangle, # 47

Dr Faustus reports a sticky space bar at Shakespeare’s Globe (the first instance now corrected on the webpage, although the space seems to have been lifted from the later section on The White Devil, ‘Webster’stragedy’) in a synopsis that also uses revenge in a less than meaningful manner:

Link: Shakespeare’s Globe, ‘Read Not Dead’

Cervantes’influence, andraucously, anepisode, withthe, revenge for avenge

Not Washed or Cooked, # 300

A Times breadcrumb with echoes of yesterday’s mangle:

holidy

Not Washed or Cooked, # 299

Today’s mangle was spotted in Elephant & Castle Station by Dr Faustus, in an advertisement for Sir John Cass's Foundation and Red Coat School. This is a puzzling error. Surely, with a repeating pattern like this, the obvious thing to do is check the first set thoroughly and then copy and paste it?

Wednesdy

Not Washed or Cooked, # 292

The last day of misspellings of ‘appropriate’ brings several other mangles, including an idiosyncratic use of exclamation marks:

Link: GigSalad, ‘Amber Belly Dance’

apropreat; Resuraunt; Privet; Capavating; Parties of types! Night Clubs! Restaurants! Cultural Events! Country Club Events! Weddings!

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 219

From the competency test featured yesterday, Dr Faustus now sends problems with prepositions:

Source: CEB — SHL Talent Measurement

talk on her phone 7,000 minutes; suited for

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 216

Dr Faustus, still unimpressed by Waterstones abandoning its apostrophe, doesn’t think much of its staff’s proofreading abilities either:

for those can attend

Not Washed or Cooked, # 287

A strange new word in an article on good university teachers:

Link: The Guardian, ‘Want to improve teaching in universities? Value those who teach’

proposesusing

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

Double-take, # 206

Using countries’ names adjectivally often feels odd and is arguably ungrammatical, and much more so with acronyms… and that’s not even the mangle here!

Link: The Telegraph, ‘The history of Guide Dogs for the Blind’

trained the first-ever UK and

Double-take, # 202

How can any professional writer think that a singular verb might be appropriate here? (The article’s title seems short of a possessive pronoun, too.)

Link: The Sunday Times, ‘Money’ section, ‘At 95, I’m fighting the NHS to fund wife’s care’

millions of pounds has [+ title: At 95, I’m fighting the NHS to fund wife’s care]

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 207

Old Chelsea has been dining at Ciao Bella in London, where at least one mangled dessert is on offer:

covered with tick layer

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 200

Stilted syntax and a mangle, spotted by Dr Faustus:

Link: BBC News, ‘China shares fall more than 8% on growth concerns’

The mangled verb was subsequently changed — unfortunately to the simple present ‘saw’ rather than the past perfect (or pluperfect) ‘had seen’ that the context‘s temporal logic requires, and which seemed to be what the writer had originally intended.

seen for hd seen [+saw for had seen]

You Cannot Be Serious, # 57

This political poster is currently doing the rounds on social media. In addition to the typographical mangle and the odd temporal description, the group’s identifying acronym and logo are omitted:

 

airstikes; ‘just several days’ [+ missing identifying logo/acronym]

Other Englishes, # 2

Following on from yesterday’s scam email, here is a second, showing another familiar set of errors, such as stilted syntax, the omission of direct and indirect articles, or use of an incorrect article, and the omission of a letter at the end of a word that results in a spell-checker appeasing preposition instead of the intended noun:

missing/incorrect articles (Natwest Online Banking team; introduce new much secured …] process; you are the member of our online banking); simple for filling procedure; you can get advantage

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 87

Via John Holloway, a missing apostrophe and a missing space:

Stewards Flat; Thankyou

Multimangle, # 24

Here, via Dr Faustus, is a much and variously mangled blurb for the SWLondoner [sic]:

Link: SWLondoner, ‘Read the July edition of South West Londoner packed with news, features and entertainment’