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, # 224

A hideous mangle, a puzzling preposition, and some repetitive and confusing gerunds, spotted by Dr Faustus:

Link: College of Media and Publishing, Sports Journalism

jurnalism; exciting reading looking; reading [again]; about for by?

You Cannot Be Serious, # 65

It would seem, and it is confirmed by the webpage’s address, that the writer of this breadcrumb (the first screenshot below) decided that the writer of the headline (the second screenshot) had used the wrong preposition and so changed it, mangling the meaning in a rather hilarious manner. (Neither spells the playwright’s first name with a diaeresis, as he always did.)

Link: The Telegraph, ‘What It’s Like to Live with Noel [sic] Coward’s Garden’

What it’s Like to Live in Noel Coward’s Garden

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 100

Another nonsensical preposition:

Link: The Sunday Times, ‘Archbishop Warns of Campus Anti-Semites’

echoes with for echoes of

Multimangle, # 48

Des Pond of Slough has now taken several online courses, of which the latest, delivered by Future Learn, is ‘From World War to White Heat: the RAF in the Cold War’, a collaboration by Royal Air Force [RAF] Museums and the Department of History at Royal Holloway, University of London, under the guidance of Dr Ross Mahoney, Aviation Historian, RAF Museum, and Dr Emmett Sullivan, Senior Lecturer in History, Royal Holloway.

Des is usually full of praise for these courses, but this one has been dogged by badly-finished written materials. Submitting this example, Des remarks: ‘This is after typos had been pointed out by several people, so this is the corrected version.’

deminished; in for of, & boarders for borders

Multimangle, # 46

The first of a short series of seasonal mangles. Today’s come from a blog that seems to have been created quite recently. The author is not identified.

Link: Happy Easter Bunnies Chocolate Rabbit Photos & Pictures 2016,
‘Happy Easter Sunday Activities For Children’s 2016’

Celebrations on the holy week; Munday Thursday; last super; So friends we hope that you have done all the latest all the latest collection for you. faces on near and dear ones

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 227

It’s all very well being authoritative and expert, but the little words matter too, and a spell-checker wouldn’t flag this error:

Giuseppe Palumbo, Key Terms in Translation Studies (London and New York: Continuum, 2009), p. 20.
Online: Google Books

Keep of the grass

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

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

Multimangle, # 33

Received by a surprised Dr Faustus, who barely knows where to start (mangle-wise, that is), but is especially taken by the use of apostrophes, which certainly does ‘look unusual for’ him…

O’k; embroider for embroidery; It may look unusual foryou; I live in a small city. but I would like to see the world; I love to walk around the pair; foto; Now, I’m end

Double-take, # 207

An apostrophe catastrophe and a strange choice of preposition:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Protein World […] more sexist than ever’

its for it's & between for during

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 205

Mo Juste comments: ‘As a keen supporter of Northampton Town Football Club, I’ve been following recent developments, but it’s hard to know when the administration petition will be heard according to this headline’ — when or even whether!

Link: Northampton Chronicle & Echo, ‘Administration petition for Northampton Town […]’

by on

Double-take, # 191

The preposition in this title is superfluous since the book (spotted in Aldi, as I recall) is about cooking for one’s friends and not, as the phrasing implies, having them round to help prepare food:

An internet trawl reveals that many compilers have use this title or some variation of it, but British-English and US-English dictionaries confirm that the verb takes a direct object.

Entertaining with Friends

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/

Double-take, # 182

A redoubled prepositional mangle in this headline:

Link: Hereford Times, ‘Hereford dog believed […]’

to be added and removed to banned breed list

Other Englishes, # 1

The first of two days of lovely scam emails. Such scams are another reason (if one were needed) to teach, learn and use good English, and to read properly instead of skim, so that recipients can determine when they are being scammed; this is especially important when scammers’ offerings are made to look convincing with logos and apparently official email addresses:

As is often the case, the key errors in this email are verb tenses and grammatical number, although there are some odd prepositions here too, and ’prevent’ has been used as if it were a direct synonym of ’protect’.

by for from [x2]; introduce for [has] introduced; prevent for protect; restore for restored; remove for removed; field for fields

Multimangle, # 20

This extract (subsequently corrected) offers a selection of typographical errors:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Driving test upgrade demanded’

hight ime, howmuch, even since, overhaul to, reagrd

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 184

Noun-verb disharmony, easily avoided by proofreading, and an illogical preposition:

Link: Bucks Free Press, ‘Radnage residents fight against plans to turn the Three Horseshoes pub into a house’

plans […] was

Double-take, # 154

Takeaway has long been accepted as a compound, so it now looks strange as separate words; but it’s the attraction of the telephone that’s the puzzle here:

Link: The Rugby Observer, 20 December, 2014, p. 8, and online

bookings for telephone; take away

Mangling Meaning, # 31

Going the rounds on social media (but original source unknown) is this assembly of mangled syntax and grammar, which, in nonsensically separating its prepositional ‘but’ from the clause it is supposed to qualify with end of sentence punctuation, manages to compromise its own point:

nonsensical ‘But’ starts sentence; changed for has changed; punctuation…