The Wrong Word Entirely, # 40

This extract comes from an article posted on a telecommunications company’s intranet. The key mangle — Cf. this mangle from last year — may be a misapprehension or a typographical error:

 free reign; practise for practice

Double-take, # 63

Source: BBC News for Android, and online at BBC News, ‘Xbox password flaw exposed by five-year-old boy’

It’s hard to tell from the journalist’s transcription whether this five-year-old boy said ‘Yeah!’ or ‘Yay!’, but he probably didn’t come out with the biblical ‘Yea’ … though you can expect him to be taking over the world sometime soon.

’I was like yea’

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 119

A disharmony of verb forms:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘When saving for 10 years pays more than saving for 40’

a saver who starts and stop

Double-take, # 62

A puzzle from my inbox:

No, Nectar, a comma is not the same as an infinitive ‘to’.
help us, help you

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 118

Dr the Homie Smith has flagged this mangle in a Guardian report:

Link: The Guardian, ‘Ketamine may help treat depression, UK study finds’, 3 April 2014

The good doctor comments: ‘Apparently K causes grammatical harm as well.’
has cause […] harm

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 117

Targeted at Year 12 schoolchildren:

Link: Wikispaces Classroom, ‘WW21 Total War’

WW21

Not Washed or Cooked, # 126

This has been in the stack since last October. The Guardian has since corrected the page by removing the whole sentence.

Link: Guardian, ‘London free school headteacher with no teaching qualifications quits’, 9 October 2013

embarasing; the the

Not Washed or Cooked, # 125

This comes from the same place as last Monday’s mangle:

Link: Cooklands, ‘Tea and Coffee’ menu

accsessories

Not Washed or Cooked, # 124

I’ve noticed that Timothy Spall, in a television advertisement voiceover, pronounces the company name ‘Wickes’ as disyllabic, by doubling the first vowel. I thought it must be a ploy to draw attention to the name; but perhaps he’s simply reading from a mangled script…

Source: Robin Allen, If You Can’t Stand the Heat (Woodbury, NM, Midnight Ink, 2012), p. 70. Link: Google Books

agaiinst

Not Washed or Cooked, # 123

Following on from yesterday’s introduction to DBA theatre [sic] by Just Liam, today’s mangles come from a page on the company’s ‘School Enrichment Programme’, where the ‘Secondary Enrichment Programme’ offers

These include:

Link: DBA theatre | School Enrichment Programme | School Enrichment Programme

Quite apart from the patchy punctuation and inconsistent presentation of possessives, a theatre company that cannot spell Artaud and Stanislavsky (or Stanislavski) does not inspire confidence.

Another page — The ‘SEN Enrichment Programme’ — cuts off the final sentence (‘We also offer workshops for days suc’) with a badly-positioned slide show.

It doesn’t take long to spellcheck, proofread and polish, but no-one’s done any of it here.

Artoud, Boals; Stanisklavsky; punctuation; apostrophe

Not Washed or Cooked, # 123

This is the first of a two-part mangle submitted by Just Liam and taken from the webpages of DBA (‘dream.believe.achieve’) theatre. Today’s clip comes from the information page of the theatre’s Owner and Creative Director, who ‘has been offered a place at Warwick University to complete a Masters in Drama and Theatre Education’:

Link: DBA theatre | Meet the Team | Olivia Medlock, Owner and Creative Director

experiance; colleauge

Double-take, # 61

Start here:

In case you’re wondering, Dune actually sells footwear. However, here’s a detail of the page that loads if you select ‘Dune Black Ladies’:

Link: Dune London | New In | Brands | Dune Black Ladies

It was not what I was expecting, and I fear I may be missing the point. Is white the new black? Is black the new black? Do you have to prove you’re black to buy from the range? How does ‘Dune Black Ladies’ differ from ‘Dune Ladies’?

More confusing still: one of the pairs (the white slingbacks above, labelled ‘Dune Black Slingback Espadrille Wedge’) also comes in blue…

white shoes in Dune Black Ladies