Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 27

Some biblical studies today, extracts from a document called 'Doctrine of Temptation'. First the Old Testament:

  

Now the New Testament:

Perhaps this is the kind of temptation in question:

 Link: 'desert temptation'

It certainly looks very tempting, but you're safe: the recipe hasn't been included.

Not Washed or Cooked, # 7

No spellcheckers or proofreaders in Oxford University's Department of Experimental Psychology?

Link: UOxford, Experimental Psychology

It's not the only one, and this one seems more reprehensible: 

 Link: UOxford, Continuing Education

Perhaps the 'artifical intelligence' will help with this kind of thing when it's been created. It'll probably have a spellchecker built in.

You Cannot Be Serious, # 7

It's not entirely clear what Vitality (a gym/health club) is offering here:

Link: Vitality Gym, hen parties
 

Accident or design?

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 26

An essay on Homer's Odyssey, available online:

  Link: Lesley Roswell, 'Penelope: A Female Heroin'

 

I think this is what's called a double whammy.

You Cannot Be Serious, # 6

Today's contribution, courtesy of Bob Godiva, suggests that sponsorship can be a dangerous thing:

You need really good, clear diction for this one…

Here's the online version, where the illustration sports an unlikely caption, perhaps written tongue in cheek:

Link: Fair City News, Cox Sucker Days

Sadly, like so many of the best things in life, this turns out to be a mirage: as you've probably already guessed, Fair City News is, of course, a spoof publication (and well worth a look).

 

Not Washed or Cooked, # 6

Someone must have been paid to take the time to scan this in, run Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, save the file, and upload the result: 

Link: HRVH Historical Newspapers, Southeastern New York Library Resources Council

Why, though? Never mind 'not 100% accurate': what possible use is the result to anyone?

With all the material there must be to archive, surely it's better just scan the original and upload it. This works:

Link: HRVH Historical Newspapers, Southeastern New York Library Resources Council, 2

 

Now Try It In English, # 2

This was quoted in a Daily Telegraph report that was rather generously supplied with mangles:

Link: The Telegraph, 'we would crime it'

A trawl round the internet shows that, so far at least, this mangle seems not to be widespread, though it's not unique —

Link: Yahoo, 'Crime Referrance Number'

— and it may, of  course, be standard police jargon, as this clip from a PoliceUK.com forum suggests:

 Link: PoliceUK.com, 'crime it'

The slogan 'Stamp Out Crime' was once common. How about 'Stamp Out "Crime" As A Verb'?

Not Washed or Cooked, # 5

It's fair to say that spellchecking isn't possible in this situation, and it's too late for proofreading at this stage. This photograph of a friend-of-a-friend's arm has been going round the internet for a while:

It was his first tattoo, and may well be his last; if not, I recommend a move to graphics-only.

Now Try It In English, # 1

This is rather eye-watering:

Link: The Telegraph, 'poor families are likely to be obese'

 

The speaker is Anna Soubry, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health, who has previously worked in journalism and law.

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 25

A quick return today to a familiar and frequent mangle: 

Link: The Pubic Face of Wilkie Collins

The copyright on the webpage is 1997-2005. You'd have thought someone would have mentioned the error by now; but then there's no obvious way to contact the author…

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 24

Another of my cousin's Christmas presents was a jolly little volume called The Quotations of Oscar Wilde, The Drawings of Simon Drew (2004), which included this typographical error:

At less than 50 pages, and mainly illustrations, it can't have been much effort to proofread the book properly.

You Cannot Be Serious, # 5

Today, a contribution from an alert Manglereader:

Link: BBC News, 18 January 2013, 'C&W buses disrupted by snow'

It's not apparent whether this was mangled by the representative from the NUT (that's the UK's National Union of Teachers, for the benefit of international readers) or the anonymous journalist. Both of them should have realized that 'behold' here was gibberish.*

 

Behove (or behoove, which US-English prefers, while UK-English uses either) is rather rare these days, but both the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary include it as viable and in current usage.

* Given that one represents schoolteachers and the other writes for a living, both should also have known that the construction 'many official warnings' needs a plural verb form (more on verbal agreement soon), and that the 'not just' part of the not only but also formula should appear before 'to make a judgement' to make good sense.  However, since it's likely that the comments were made over the telephone, and possibly at short notice, these can't fairly be counted as full-blooded mangles.