You Cannot Be Serious, # 74

This fairly short piece of text is marked by confusion, due to a failure to proofread before posting — or since: the mangle, submitted by Dr Faustus a month ago was still in place as of this morning — and an absence of any of the hyphens required by the rules of grammar and for the sake of clarity, as well as inconsistency in the positioning of the registered trademark symbol:

Link: Vitae, ‘Vitae Three Minute Thesis competition’

by the until the end of June; Three Minute Thesis competition; Vitae hosted

Not Washed or Cooked, # 309

From Just Liam comes this mind-boggling mangle. As is isn’t possible to determine how vacancies are uploaded and by whom, the perpetrator is not apparent, although the bonus mangle, from the same page, must certainly be the university’s own text:

Link: Indeed, ‘Instructor or Assistant Professer: UMD Department of History’

Professer; Smoking, chewing tobacco and the use of electronic cigarettes is prohibited

Double-take, # 217

A typographical error and some hideous syntax, via the inbox of Dr Faustus:

in-tracy; You don’t have to be applying to the employers

Not Washed or Cooked, # 288

Dr Faustus recently contributed a mangle from the application form for the graduate trainee scheme of The Financial Times. He seems to have persevered with the application, and the FT form with its mangles:

our for your; acamdeic; recieved; employmnet

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 214

Dr Faustus recently found this mangle on the application form for the graduate trainee scheme of The Financial Times. He comments: ‘Can’t believe the FT can’t proofread...’ It has to be said that the syntax isn’t prime quality either:

proved for provide

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 99

Spotted at the Diversity Careers Fair at the Royal College of Surgeons by Dr Faustus:

career’s for careers

You Cannot Be Serious, # 56

This advertisement from the Rugby Observer, 24 June 2014, shows some interesting career options:

Apprenticeships [… Business Administration Customer Service […] Sports Coaching Warehousing & Nail Services

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 92

Even though he’d previously spotted mangles in Reed’s job posts, Gary Hazell was taken aback at this one which, as the second screenshot (edited to include only the later section headings) shows, went on and on:

Link: Reed.co.uk, ‘Production Engineer — Swindon, Wiltshire’

you’re for your (x3)

Double-take, # 173

Received from Unitemps by Dr Faustus, and not mangling English so much as mangling in English. It certainly seems confused about how to express times, or at least how to express them consistently:

07:45am – 4:15pm OR 08:30am – 18:00pm

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 86

Dr Faustus is still receiving mangled email employment alerts from Unitemps. This one takes the catastrophic apostrophe to a new nadir:

Physic’s

Double-take, # 161

Today’s mangle predates this blog, and was blogged elsewhere, but it follows on nicely from yesterday’s and it seems appropriate to bring it into the Mangling English fold — and it is a favourite of mine:

The Rugby Review (5 November 2009)

black female actress

Not Washed or Cooked, # 234

Gary Hazell has found a subpar heading on an employment agency webpage:

Link: Reed.co.uk, ‘Qaulity Engineer’

qaulity

Now Try It In English, # 5

Another from the inbox of Dr Faustus, and presumably based on the council’s template for calls to interview. Note that the ‘person to ask for’ was edited out, and is not an omission:

Test will be required to undertake on the day

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 177

Dr Faustus has sent this extract from an emailed recruitment circular, which demonstrates a failure to proofread, an absence of logical hyphenation and an abrupt shift in perspective:

a supervisors; third person to second person shift

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 75

Mo Juste went to Corby the other week, and this is what he found:

As he says, ‘If you’re going to get it wrong, make sure everyone can see it.’
carer’s wanted

Multimangle, # 13

John Holloway has sent in these extracts from an invitation to an interview for a job — as an English teacher!

syntax, punctuation, grammar, apostrophes, If you are planning on bring with a USB devise

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 70

Mo Juste contacted me a while ago to say he’d seen a mangle in a poster advertising a particular event, but hadn’t been in a position to take a photograph. I was fairly sure that I’d be able to find the error replicated somewhere; and, in the event, deciding which of the very many examples to use was the difficult part. So, in commemoration of the famous Scots poet, and based on an idea by Mo Juste, here are some apostrophe catastrophes:

Link: TalentScotland, ‘Burn’s Night celebrations’

Link: Bedford School, ‘Burn’s Night’

Burn’s Night; Burns Night

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

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 150

Kieron Hayes has sent in this excellent mangle, commenting: ‘I’m assuming that they provide a marker pen for this role’:

The job posting seems to have originated with recruitment agency SF Group (‘seriously focussed on recruitment’), and the copy later provides an illogical shift in perspective (’The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in writing online copy across all platforms. You must have strong editorial and proofreading skills with a highly creative approach with the ability to captivate online audiences’). Investigation reveals that the key error (bogs for blogs) was corrected, but not before being reproduced online (in 27 places, according to Google). The appalling apostrophe catastrophe stands.

I have no idea whether it continues, but it used to be standard practice in some HR companies to rewrite CVs in their house style, sometimes with added errors. Many potential employers, of course, would have no idea that the errors were not the candidate’s own…

writing copy for the website, bogs and social media avenues; companies online marketing strategy

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 56

It isn’t clear whether the titular mangle and the odd use of comma below are the fault of the recruitment agency or the newspaper staff (probably the former, since such content is presumably copied from material supplied by email), but, as Des Pond of Slough points out, it feels as if something is missing…

Source, Rugby Observer, 2 October, 2014, p. 41, and online

warehouse operative’s; inc,