Not Washed or Cooked, # 237

As Dr Faustus has discovered, UCL — that’s University College London — has apparently dispensed with both spell-checking and proofreading in its email communications to its customers, resulting, here at least, in some frankly embarrassing mangles of words and punctuation. These emails both relate to the same ‘purchase’ or ‘order’, which is actually a booking, and it is notable that only one bothers with a salutation:

approriate; furture reference; details of your query quoting

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 189

A fairly common typographical error, here from a BBC News report and spotted (some time ago) by Dr Faustus:

Link: BBC News, ‘Pimlico stabbing prompts murder inquiry’

though for thought

Double-take, # 166

This is extracted from a genuine Google email, and is a useful reminder that a spell-checker can check only the accuracy of spelling, not the accuracy of content:

[email of 24/06/15 advertising Father’s Day offer ending 21/06/15]

Double-take, # 165

If you have to explain it, the analogy is surely pointless…

Link: Rugby Observer, 4 June, 2015, p. 17

extinct dodo

Double-take, # 164

There are times when it is perfectly correct to place commas around further information. This is not one of them:

Link: The Guardian, ‘First crop of £9,000 tuition fee-paying UK graduates “more focused on pay”’

The adjectival clause (or adjective clause) that provides details about timing and fees in the subheading is intended to qualify the subject noun ‘graduates’, but notably this information relates only to students who began their courses in 2012, and not to any others. The information is thus limited, making this an essential adjectival clause, which should not be separated by commas. As it stands, the comma separation incorrectly extends the focus from a specific group of graduates — the 2012 student intake — to all graduates, which is nonsensical since earlier students were not paying fees at the stated rate. (It might also be noted that, as many have yet to go through the formal graduation process, they are probably still graduands, rather than graduates, a distinction the education-minded Guardian should know.)

An essential (or a defining or restrictive) adjectival clause contains crucial information about the subject, without which the whole point is lost. Conversely, an adjectival clause that offers further details that are not necessary to understanding the central point is called non-essential (or non-defining or non-restrictive). This additional information, which can be removed without affecting the meaning of the sentence, should be placed within a pair of commas.

A detailed explanation of these clauses and their uses can be found on the Cambridge Dictionaries Online website. More succinct explanations and examples are offered by The Center for Writing Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (note that in US-English the hyphenated descriptors, ‘non-essential’ and so on, become compounds: ‘nonessential’), and also the German website englisch-hilfen.de, which offers some useful observations on correct and colloquial usage.

essential adjectival clause punctuated as non-essential

Double-take, # 163

Just Liam spotted this at the Coventry Pride event last weekend:

missing punctuation; visit this lady, she will reveal all

Multimangle, # 21

The third and final day of mangles spotted by Vice-Commodore Pugwash at the National Defence Academy, Shrivenham. At least the relentless capitalization has been dropped, presumably because this is information rather than instruction:

Monday’s for Mondays; Friday’s for Fridays

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 188

A pair of instructions from the walls of the National Defence Academy, Shrivenham, submitted by Vice-Commodore Pugwash:

faulty for faulty; [any for a]; [syntax]; comma for full stop

Double-take, # 162

Vice-Commodore Pugwash spotted this in the Officers’ Mess at the National Defence Academy, Shrivenham:

will incur costs of which will be added; colon

Multimangle, # 20

This extract (subsequently corrected) offers a selection of typographical errors:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘Driving test upgrade demanded’

hight ime, howmuch, even since, overhaul to, reagrd

Not Washed or Cooked, # 236

Two mangles were included in a short section of a marketing email received from Routledge, the academic publishing house, on 11 May, 2015 (full browser version here):

Following the link to the main page for French Grammar and Usage brings you to the website’s main page on the text, which varies the information slightly, but still repeats both of these mangles:

Link: Routledge — Taylor & Francis Group, ‘French Grammar and Usage’

seaparately

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 187

Des Pond of Slough may have found a new verb, but more likely just an omission:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘“It’s time to hold physical cash,” says one of Britain’s most senior fund managers’

time to money under the mattress