Not Washed or Cooked, # 48

This is odd:

Source: Chrystopher L. Nehaniv, ‘The Second Person: Meaning and Metaphors.’ Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1562 (Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence): Computation for Metaphors, Analogy, and Agents, ed. by Chrystopher L. Nehaniv (1999), 380–88 (p. 380). Link: Google Books, ‘swam in a flock of swams’

The swams, of course, shouldn’t even have made it through a spell-checker…

Just to make it absolutely clear that this is definitely an error and not some kind of arcane computer science terminology, here’s a detail of the volume’s cover:

Link: Google Books, Computation for Metaphors, Analogy, and Agents, 1562 (1999)

which clearly depicts a flock of swams swans.

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 17

Des Pond of Slough provides this:

He comments: ‘I suppose we should be grateful it’s not Clock Tower’s.’ Then there’s the random capitalization…

Mangling Meaning, # 15

We featured a mangle from the novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War a couple of weeks ago, but that was a straightforward homophone. This error is harder to fathom:

London: Gerald Duckworth & Co, 2006, p. 209. Link: Google Books, ‘bodies’ concerned’

The grammar-checking function in both Word and WordPerfect fail to identify a problem in this sentence; nor was the problem detected by the few free grammar checkers I tried it out on, although Reverso did correct the sentence — to this nonsense:

Reverso uses the Ginger grammar-checking software, whose installed version offered exactly the same nonsensical stylistic alteration when used with Word. (Ginger is available in both free and premium versions: perhaps the latter would have identified the error, but somehow I doubt it.) Grammarly identified two ‘critical writing issues’, but wanted me to sign up for a free trial to obtain any details. One issue was shown under Plagiarism, which was fair enough. However, the other wasn’t listed as a Grammar error, but under Style and Word Choice, so I’m guessing that signing up would reveal the same ‘correction’ Reverso offered.

Let’s get back to the problematic sentence:

Just like we are now – safe, protected, still on the surface as far as our bodies’ concerned.

The issue here is nothing to do with whether the possessive pronoun our is correct (it is), but the inexplicable apostrophe. What is it doing here? What is it for?

My best guess is that Max Brooks planned to write an abbreviation, and either failed to complete it or became tangled up in both singular and plural forms and the correct position of the abbreviating apostrophe. The intended sentence might thus be one of these:

Just like we are now – safe, protected, still on the surface as far as our body’s concerned.

Just like we are now – safe, protected, still on the surface as far as our bodies’re concerned.

The first offering assumes plural bodies has been inserted accidentally in place of the notional singular form body, and that the intention was to write the contraction for body is. The second assumes that Brooks intended to telescope bodies are (cf. they’re), but somehow he omitted, or someone accidentally edited out, the crucial re.

Double-take, # 11

Keeping on the subject of fauna, these are incredibly large tits – but only in imperial measurements:

Source: Rob Hume, RSPB Birds of Britain and Europe, rev. edn (London: Dorling Kindersley, 2006), p. 316

Not Washed or Cooked, # 47

Seen in the pond section of a garden centre:

Quite a sweet name, but actually called shubunkins… Admittedly, the word is specialized and thus isn’t commonly included in wordlists (Word, WordPerfect and Blogger all highlight it, for instance), but Google certainly recognized shubumkin as wrong and offered the right word instead, and if you’re selling them, presumably you are a specialist…

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 78

Josh Polchar recently spotted a hideous error in The Telegraph. Mangling English was too late to obtain the printed newspaper to determine the spelling used there, and the online version had been corrected, but the error’s legacy remains on a few websites, such as World News Inc., that trawl for news and reproduce items verbatim:

Link: Google search on “peers gave their ascent”

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 77

Source: printed document

Some proofreading seems in order to make the syntax work…

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 76

The read at the top here seems to have slipped though nPower’s proofreading net:

No link: page accessible only via login

However, similar usage on other pages shows that it isn’t a typographical error at all:

Link: nPower, ‘Providing a meter reading’

While read exists as a noun, it is not a synonym of reading when used in this context. OED even has a special section under meter relating to reading meters, in which the term read does not feature as a viable alternative:

‘meter-reading n. the reading of a meter or meters; an instance of this; (also) a reading displayed on or recorded by a meter.’

Not Washed or Cooked, # 46

Today’s example comes from The Guardian’s Capital Letters consumer troubleshooting column:

Link: The Guardian | Money | Capital Letters | ‘Put me in the picture about my camera’

The mangle is reprehensible, since it’s been subject to neither spell-checking nor proofreading; but, in the context of the mangle, the opening sentence of the consumer champion’s response is sublime.

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 16

Here’s a sentence from the Android version of a BBC News article:

It’s correct in the online version, whose update time is identical to that of the Android post. Other than the position of the apostrophe, the posted sentences are identical, suggesting that someone has deliberately moved the apostrophe during the editing process, either from the incorrect to the correct position or vice versa. I don’t know the procedure (anyone able to offer enlightenment?), but I’d guess that the Android version is edited down from the online text.… in which case: ouch.

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 15

This one keeps coming round. This time, an email from Nectar makes an ambiguous remark:

Is it intended as a helpful warning (‘Get ready for kids! Summer holidays!’) which simply lacks closure in its first sentence? Or, more likely, should kids have an apostrophe and summer not be treated as a proper noun?

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 75

The error here was spotted by Richard Bonsor:

Link: Pink News, ‘Christian Voice leader: “Tesco support for gay rights to blame for super mouse infestation”’

Richard comments: ‘“A live mice was seen running along the floor of the warehouse.” Pretty sure a dead one wouldn’t do that and I’m even more sure the singular isn’t mice.’