Double-take, # 39

This is both badly-punctuated and ambiguous:

Link: Daily Star, ‘“You’re lucky I didn’t knock you out” […]’

Investigation reveals that the article discusses a policeman being filmed in the act of threatening a photographer, not a policeman taking footage of a threatening photographer.

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 28

Not a well-placed apostrophe on this DVD cover:

It’s definitely a collection of films from the 1960s, not from 1960.

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 30

A not very unprofessional scam attempt via email:

Not Washed or Cooked, # 106

Dr Faustus has found another error in information posted by and for the Warwick Economics Summit:

Link: Warwick SU, ‘Warwick Economics Summit 2014’

It’s not clear if this is a typographical error or whether someone thinks it’s actually a word.

Not Washed or Cooked, # 105

Dr Faustus has also found this gem:

Source: article by Wilford E. Smith published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 10: 2 (1976), 76-78. Link: Dialogue

Not Washed or Cooked, # 104

New conference season, same old mangles.* Spotted by Dr Faustus:

Link: Warwick Economics Summit 2014, ‘Accomodation [sic]’

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…


* See Not Washed or Cooked, # 73 for a range of earlier offerings.

Not Washed or Cooked, # 103

Just found this mangle in an online questionnaire issued by the library of a Russell Group university:

Not Washed or Cooked, # 102

This is the text from a poster spotted by Dr Faustus on the official Thorpe Park Facebook page:

Source: Facebook, Thorpe Park Official

Not Washed or Cooked, # 101

This (rather suggestive, or is that just my mind?) subject line of an email sent by TimeOut to Dr Faustus has not been checked before sending:

Not Washed or Cooked, # 100

The rest of the week comes courtesy of Dr Faustus. This instruction seems to have been typed in a rush:

Link: The University of Warwick, Warwick Economics Summit, ‘Internal Tickets’

A good spellchecker will flag such duplications, but those built into software for creating and editing material for the internet may not do this. (Blogger’s doesn’t.) This is one reason why it is usually better to use a word processor for composing text intended for a webpage; the text can then be copied to the webpage when it has been fully checked.

Double-take, # 38

A stray comma precedes impossibility and confusion:

Link: Warwickshire Police Online News, ‘Computer users in Warwickshire and West Mercia warned […]’

Or as the contributor, Des Pond of Slough, succinctly put it: ‘Eh?’

Double-take, # 37

This is comprehensible at the start, but quickly goes very wrong:

Link: The Times (subscription access only), ‘Troubleshooter: Be on guard’ — ‘Unsporting price rise’