You Cannot Be Serious, # 2

Below a 'college freshman' (I think this means a first-year student at a North American high school, college of further education, or university) is requesting 'help' — actually to have a whole report or essay written for him (or her: 'freshman' seems to cover all gender options) — from eNotes.com, 'an educational resource used by millions of teachers and students', offering 'study guides, lesson plans, quizzes with a vibrant community of knowledgeable teachers and students to help you with almost any subject'… for a monthly or annual fee.

The freshman's homework (sampled below) was supplied by someone describing him/herself as a 'Teacher Graduate School Honors'. Wikipedia confirms this means someone doing (or perhaps having completed) an advanced degree.

Prepare to spit your coffee over your keyboard:

 Link: eNotes, 'Santan's speeches'

You Cannot Be Serious, # 1

The post-festive period can be quite gloomy for many, so I'm going for maximum amusement today.

This is one of a small, but cherished, collection that I look at from time to time and think cannot possibly be genuine errors, so it starts a new thread called, with apologies to John McEnroe, You Cannot Be Serious.

The question is the main point, but the response is worth reading too… 

 Link: Answers Corporation, 'cane, abel and Stan'

Not Washed or Cooked, # 3

Sticking with the 'artifical' thread, here are some examples of international science weekly New Scientist not spellchecking or proofreading its article titles, a tradition stretching over two decades:

  Link: New Scientist, 'Artifical mother of pearl…'

 Link: New Scientist, 'Artifical blood deaths…'

 Link: New Scientist, 'Babies born to artifical "cells"'

Link: New Scientist, 'Artifical intelligence…'

Not Washed or Cooked, # 2

I imagine I'm not the only one back at work today, so it'll be back to short and reprehensible for the next few entries.

This one's an example from a North American site, so I shall employ the appropriate American-English term for the severity of the mangle. This is a humdinger:

 Link: 'Moblie Artifical Pancreas'

It's undoubtedly a good cause, but I'd think twice (at least) about donating, and it seems possible that people with money might also decide to donate elsewhere: after all, if you can't, don't or won't make the effort to be accurate when you're trying to part punters from their cash, why would you be any more precise in creating the technology? 

I can't decide whether I'm more astonished that the errors haven't been noticed or that 'pancreas' is correct…

'Most trusted' does not necessarily equal correct

Let's start the year with a hideous mangle from a highly reputable international publisher: 

Link: Oxford Dictionaries, 'Better Writing … Inverted Commas'

It's hard to understand how this error could have occurred at all, and examples of usage further down the page use real double quotation marks.

The failure to check the content adequately is especially reprehensible given the site's blazoned identifier as 'The world's most trusted dictionaries', and this mangle's location in a section on 'Better writing'…

 

Have never, and will never, …

I'm closing the festive season with a pet hate and a picture of Father Christmas:

Link: Jake Wallis Simons, 'I don't want my kids to believe in Father Christmas'

Ignoring the unnecessary and meaningless 'OK', the first sentence proper consists of a main clause interrupted by a second clause. The former relates to the past, the latter to the future, and they are related to each other through the main verb, encourage. However, even though both the syntax and the punctuation show that the second clause is subordinate to the first, it has been allowed to dictate the form of the main verb. This means that the bare infinitive, encourage, also has to stand in for the present perfect form, encouraged, with the result that the main clause is ungrammatical: 'I have never encourage my children…' 

The meaning is clear, but that doesn't make it a) right, b) elegant, or even c) most effective in making the point. (It's the sort of thing that makes me stop reading instantly, since a) the writer obviously lacks professionalism: he has so little respect for the reader and for himself that he can't be bothered making the effort to type one additional word to make his sentence correct; and b) the piece is likely to be littered with such irritations, so instead of fulfilling its potential as a pleasant and/or interesting piece of leisure reading, it becomes something that needs editing for accuracy and clarity…)

Constructions like this one seem to be based on a misunderstanding of a rare form that is acceptable, found in statements such as: They have never and will never come to our house. The difference, of course, is that here the two key verb forms, past participle and bare infinitive, coincidentally appear identical, come.

It is undeniably briefer — by one whole word! — to use the incorrect formula instead of 'I have never encouraged and will never encourage my children…', but the repetition of the verb would in fact make the meaning more plain and increase the emphasis, which is the effect the writer seems to want.

Alternatively, what's wrong with the even more emphatic: 'I have never encouraged my children to believe in Father Christmas, and I never will'?

Happy New Year! More mangles in 2013.

 

Not Washed or Cooked, # 1

I'm trying to clear the seasonal mangles before the season ends, so here's a link the Daily Mail posted, without spellchecking or proofreading it, on the index of its website on Christmas Eve:

Oddly, the headline on the linked page was almost identical, except that it was correct:

 Link: Daily Mail, 'artifical spruce'

It's not the first time the newspaper has run an 'old, faux Christmas tree' story — complete with the same typo. Here's 2007's version:

 Link: Daily Mail, 'artifical Christmas tree'

The Mail seems to be fond of this typo. There are other headlines and links (sometimes with one or other corrected), copy and captions:

 

Link: Daily Mail, 'artifical skin'

    Link: Daily Mail, 'artifical legs'

Link: Daily Mail, 'Artifical Intelligence 1'

Link: Daily Mail, 'Artifical Intelligence 2'

 Link: Daily Mail, 'artifical flavours'

  Link: Daily Mail, 'artifical turf'

There are more… and I think we'll be meeting this one again.

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 1

Leaving aside the hideous pun, note that the mark in front of the n isn't an apostrophe but an open inverted comma or quotation mark, while another letter in the word has been omitted and not marked at all:

Link: The Sun, 'Beeb elf 'n safety ban'

The Oxford Dictionaries website shows how to do this abbreviation of 'and' correctly, using two apostrophes, on its 'apostrophe' page:

Link, Oxford Dictionaries, 'apostrophe'

* See also the Its and it's entry on this blog

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 15

In keeping with the seasonal theme… The text here (which is undated, although a response was posted in July 2008) needed proofreading and correcting, preferably before the error was copied into both the index and the link address:

 Link: Myths Encyclopedia, 'Santa Clans'

The oversight may partly be due to the fact that, as received wisdom and experience show, fonts with serifs (the little details at the ends of some strokes in fonts such as Times or Georgia) are more difficult to read onscreen than fonts without serifs (such as Arial or Verdana). In Myths Encyclopedia's font, especially in the bold format used for the headings, the 'n' might be mistaken for a 'u'.

Coincidentally, however, there actually is a Santa Clan:

Link: The Clan Claus Society

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 14

Today's mangle, the continuation from yesterday's, has a student make a pleasant and good-humoured observation on the teacher's 'Santa' typo. Sadly he, in his turn, hasn't checked Satan's name before posting his comments:

Link: 'Paradise Lost Question 2', 2

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 13

Today's and tomorrow's mangles (continuing the seasonal theme) form a pair, a question and response. This, rather unfortunately, is a teacher's question for her students…

Link: 'Paradise Lost Question 2'

This extract offers a double mangle, as it also uses 'classic' (the best of its kind, an outstanding example) where 'classical' (relating to the ancient world, notably Greece and Rome) is meant.

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 12

A headline gem from yesterday's Daily Telegraph — another the spellchecker wouldn't flag. (The subheading gets it right.)

Link: 'Italian policy…'