Double-take, # 6

This letter was published last month, but apparently sent (via time machine?) from a later year:

Link: Daily Telegraph, Comment | Letters, 13 April, 2013

Not Washed or Cooked, # 27

Hope Adroit Services Ltd are better at the plumbing than the proofing…

Not Washed or Cooked, # 26

Here are some examples of a not-uncommon mangle that shouldn't have got through a proofread, and clearly didn't have a spell-check. First, a headline:

Link: Daily Telegraph, 'Good News Britian…'

The writer may not have been responsible for the headline, of course, but it does make you wonder whether the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development is an institute where spelling doesn't matter…

Now some copy, so definitely the fault of the writer, Stuart Kelly:

Link: The Scotsman, 'King Arthur, Prince of Scots'

And finally, a heading that undermines the authority of anything else on the page:

 Link: The Full Wiki, 'Great Britian: Wikis'

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 9

This mangle from January echoes one of yesterday's apostrophe issues:

Link: Daily Telegraph, 'Mid Staffs scandal: dummy taped to four-month-old baby's mouth'*

The word was correctly presented in the headline though.


* Closing quotation marks do occur in the source, but later.

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 8

Starting with the company name, apostrophes not allowed:

Link: the above is from an email, but the corresponding website page reproduces the (lack of) grammar…

Not Washed or Cooked, # 25

I remember reading somewhere a while back that this is a common error, though this is the first time I've consciously encountered it:

Link: About.com - Spreadsheets, 'Excel's VLOOKUP Function'

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 55

From a Daily Telegraph report on 15 April:

Link: The Telegraph, 'Government forcing stay-at-home mums to abandon children, say campaigners'

I wonder if they ever survey men to see if they'd prefer to work fewer hours… whether or not they're wearing hats.

Not Washed or Cooked, # 24

It would seem that Facebook's Little Helpers have no access to spell-checking facilities, nor much aptitude for proofreading:

Link: Facebook Help Centre, 'How do I see my friends' upcoming birthdays?' (item 200667833309958)

Mangling Meaning, # 9

This recent Telegraph offering reads very oddly:

Link: Telegraph, 'Thousands of Scottish pupils do not read and write well'

Simultaneously reading and writing well seems over-ambitious for pupils of any nationality. Perhaps the conjunction should be or rather than and… although the alteration doesn't make the construction feel any more like a headline.

Mangling Meaning, # 8

Today, it's a Telegraph subheading that doesn't mean what it says:

Link: Telegraph, 'Archie, the pet dog…'

The report reads a little like a Pratchett parody. Virtually everyone's age is faithfully reported, with the dog's age referred to three times in the main text and once in the caption!

Incidentally, the story does have a wag in its tail: Archie has been found.

Not Washed or Cooked, # 23

I'm looking forward to trying this new Indian restaurant and takeaway. It has an interesting menu, though this section hasn't been checked very carefully:

You Cannot Be Serious, # 20

Boston University is presently running a self-promotion campaign, online ―

Link: Boston University, 'Loblolly Pine Tree' (via the 'Keep Reading' link)

― and in a rather hideously-hued print version (in last week's Times Higher Education Supplement):

The appropriate term for this strangely structured syntax may be 'breathless'. It certainly isn't 'deathless'… Are we to suppose that this reflects the preferred house style for BU students and academics?