The Wrong Word Entirely, # 12

Des Pond of Slough provides this (which isn’t the only mangle in the piece), from a recent article in the Telegraph’s ‘Motoring’ section:

Link: The Telegraph, Motoring, Goodwood Festival of Speed 2013

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 67

When?

Link: The Telegraph, Ian Cowie

This is a reprise for the article, whose ambiguous headline featured as Mangling Meaning, # 10 in May this year. According to his byline, the author ‘was named Consumer Affairs Journalist of the Year in the London Press Club Awards 2012. He has been head of personal finance at Telegraph Media Group since 2008, having been personal finance editor since 1989…’ Apparently, however, he still hasn’t been trained in proofreading…

Not Washed or Cooked, # 40

Detail from an online poster advertising Freshblood Theatre’s production of Capital:

Link (secure): Facebook, Poster for Capital

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 66

This email needed a final check before takeoff:

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 12

Here's the text from a pop-up (with a rather nice picture, which you can see by following the link) that popped up at me last week:

Link: Great British Chefs pop-up advertisement

This issue has arisen before with kids (Apostrophe Catastrophe, # 6). The omission of the apostrophe from kids recipes makes it seem as if the kids are the key ingredient, a sense rather consolidated by the name of the application. Cooking with vegetables, cooking with spices, cooking with kids…

The application of the adjective amazing is not unambiguous either.

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 65

This is a fairly common pitfall, requiring careful proofreading to avoid:

Link: Moneysupermarket.com | … | Dual Fuel

You would think that energy companies might make an extra effort to check for it:

Link: British Gas | … | Account queries

… and also employment agencies. This one seems to have run out of commas too:

Link: Total Jobs | ‘Gas Meter Installer / Duel Fuel Installer’

These should have been better checked before going to press as well:

 Link: The Family Handyman | ‘Efficient Heating: Duel-Fuel Heat Pump’

Link: Builders’ Merchants News, ‘B&Q trials duel fuel trucks’

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 64

This is clearly a labour of love by someone who probably does not have English as a first language ― but surely at least the band’s name could be spelt correctly, even if just once, and the album titles copied accurately:

Link: MostlyPink.net | Led Zeplin

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 63

An old one, and a Grauniad/Observer special:

Link: Observer, ‘agony ant’

Not to be confused with this chap, who is using the term humorously and deliberately because his name is Antonio ― geddit?

Link: The Olive Press, ‘Agony Ant’

Double-take, # 11

Here is the opening paragraph of last Thursday’s report in The Independent on the occupation of Warwick University’s Senate House by Protect the Public University ― Warwick:

Link: The Independent, ‘Warwick University buildings occupied in “privatisation” protest’

Someone tell the Indie that the ‘privatisation and marketisation’ have been going on a lot longer than that…

Not Washed or Cooked, # 39

I came across this in last Saturday’s Tolygruff:

Link: The Telegraph, ‘pestel and mortar’

As far as I’m aware, pestel was a viable variant spelling in the Middle Ages, but fell into disuse during the 1600s. I might also point out that you can’t actually use the implements in this way: you grind something in a mortar with a pestle, and, yes, the pestle in particular offers possibilities for innuendo and sexual jokes, as, for instance, Francis Beaumont made clear in his play The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607, summary here).

Anyway, I now offer you an illustrated set of spelling variants (athough it is not necessarily complete; further offerings are, of course, welcome):

 Link: Head Street Gallery, ‘mortar and pestel’

Link: Wayfair.com, ‘Jamie Oliver Morter and Pestle’

Link: Houzz.com, ‘3 pestel and morter’

The first example contains only five complete words, of which two are incorrectly spelt; while the last is particularly puzzling since a search performed on the site’s search engine for the correctly-spelt term produced 63 results on 16 June 2013, so someone there knows how to spell and/or spell-check.

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 62

It’s great to know that The Boss is as good as ever, but Brucefan has flagged a problem, in huge letters, on Bruce Springsteen, The Official Bruce Springsteen Website:

Link: http://brucespringsteen.net | June 17, 2013

Double-take, # 10

Des Pond of Slough sent this in with the comment: ‘Thought you might like this unusual example…’ It’s so unusual, in fact, that it’s difficult to decide how to categorize it. Is the bizarre apostrophe the key element? Or the strange choice of preposition? Or the superfluous ‘and’ after team, where a comma is needed so the syntax works?

Link: Loudwire, ‘Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson Secures $8 Million Investment…’