Very Foward Looking

On the bus from the car hire place to Luton airport:

Not Very Attractive

In an article in the Telegraph about how it has been suggested that women over a certain age should not wear bikinis, the writer claims that she ought to have "brindled" with indignation at this proposition:

It conjures up an interesting image, but I suspect "bristled" may have been the word she was looking for.

A Bunde and Coke Thanks

The Australian Financial Review is fairly expensive. It is supposed to know about financial things (the clue is in the name). Given these facts, it should not repeatedly refer to Germany's central bank as the Bundebank:

Spoctrate

Dear Spectator

You were once a fine magazine; you are now a fine magazine in need of a copy editor. If you don't believe me, just look at these errors, picked at random from your 30 June 2012 issue:

1. "become" is incorrect:

 2. Using "an homage" rather than "a homage" suggests that you are prescribing the horrid new pronunciation that lengthens and emphasises the final syllable of the word "homage". Someone once said that the further towards the end of any word a society chooses to place the stress, the greater that society's decadence:

 3. Toby Young rather undermines his argument for the kind of education he received by displaying in the phrase "these proposal" his inability to distinguish plural from singular:

 4. What are "back accounts" and what does "gave own his own" mean:

 5: "more nourishing than", surely - plus grammatically "the reason she preferred it is so she could spend more time" is wrong; it should be "the reason she preferred it is that it allowed her to spend more time":

 6. Surely "when you've seen as much and lived as long as Dorothy has" would be the correct way to express what the writer is trying to say:

 7. "neigbours" - do you not even have spellcheck:

Possibly you are well aware of all these problems and merely unable to find someone suitably qualified to do the job. If so, let me know. I'd happily take it on (depending on the salary, of course).

Shame

I used to be proud of my arts degree from the ANU:

The Dreaded Plauge

It's the New Black

Birght red, there's nothing quite like it, if you've got the colouring:

Visceral

I know it's silly, but my irritation about typos is sometimes visceral too:

It's Everywhere

The Spectator has a bob each way on 'is' and 'has':

Get a Life

What does it matter if the verb and the subject don't agree:

So Fussy

Singular, plural, I mean, who cares:

Definitely Indefinite

When in doubt, throw both articles in, why not:

and throw in a definite article where it isn't needed too, if you feel like it:

While we're at it, what's one 'of' between friends:

After all, if it's left out in one context, it can always be hurled in randomly in another:

The Cause of True Love

I think the word should be 'cause', not 'course', but really half the reason I'm putting this in is in order to highlight the context it comes from - Richard Glover's column in this weekend's SMH. It's worth a read, if you want a laugh or two:

Unprincipled

The AFR hasn't even outsourced to New Zealand, but they're already having trouble distinguishing between 'principle' and 'principal':

Vowel Alert

I find it particularly puzzling when a headline contains a mistake, but I try never to become defeatist:

Which Member Precisely?

The HSU - Thomson scandal is so unedifying that it is some comfort to know that only one member of the union was actually ripped off:

A Skill Gauge

The headline writer has made the body of the article redundant - or at least proved its point:

Weak Week

Usually, the magazine called The Week is pretty reliable when it comes to typos but recently an article got through that was just a swarming mess of errors:

You have to wonder if drugs were involved, when you find this (told led her):

and this (Not for wanting of trying):

and this (would soon to be shot):

all within one article.

Is Dyslexia a Disability?

Certainly, whoever wrote this caption seems to be suffering from it:

Three cheers for equal opportunities, I suppose.

Oh No

I'm hoping that the New Yorker has some eccentric style rule that states that 'Nobel', as in Nobel prize, must always be spelt as Noble. If that is not the case, then all is lost - if the New Yorker has started to let mistakes slip through, then civilisation is doomed:

Now Now

At the National Portrait Gallery in London they are just as bad at captions as they are at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (see earlier postings):

A Case of Pot and Kettle

When you write about taking your eye off things, it's a good idea to keep your eye on your own words:

(Apologies for the poor quality of this picture - my good camera was temporarily unavailable)

Eh?

If only I could counter my trepidation with a bit of 'intrepidation', I might manage to get myself to the dentist one of these days:

Comma Overboard

I was under the impression that Anzac Day is more keenly observed than ever, but this tweet today from Martin Place in Sydney suggests the public is growing bored of the whole thing:

"Kylie Simmonds ‏ @Kylie_Simmonds Close

People stopping taking time to look at wreaths . Lest we forget @ABCNews24 #ANZAC2012 #AnzacDay2012"

Or possibly a comma is needed between stopping and taking time?

Cambridge, Massachusetts

You know you're near a really good university, when you see this kind of protest in the street:

"Use proper grammar". Not a very familiar phrase in Canberra, more's the pity.

Tossing and Turning

If you are having difficulty getting to sleep because you cannot stop fretting about the erosion of English grammar, it does not help to discover that the herbal remedy you have chosen to help you get to sleep is actually part of the problem:

I remain one of the people 'whom' have difficulty falling asleep - in fact, my problem's worse than ever now.

Result of the Canberra Education System

I presume 'debris' was the word the signwriter was searching for.

English as a Foreign Language

I have rarely been able to resist headlines containing the phrase 'Slain Socialite', and so it was that I found myself on the Fox News site. I had picked up from somewhere the idea that Fox News does not always uphold the highest of journalistic standards, but, really, this appears to have been written by someone who has a very odd understanding of English:

Leaving aside what I would regard as the misuse of 'befuddled' and 'placate', what the hell does 'glommed' mean?

When Politics Gets Messy

My brother pointed out this, which appeared in an article about the Australian Labor Party that was published in the Guardian:

The democratic world may never have witnessed such murky political behaviour as we have seen during the last week in Australia. Even so, as far as I know, no-one has yet unbarred their holes.

Perspective

Depending on your point of view, Kevin Rudd's inability to proofread his own letter of resignation may support the argument that he is unfit to be Prime Minister or the argument that he should have the job back, so that he can expand his staff to include someone who can proofread things carefully:

Better than a Slap in the Face with a Wet Fish?

More of a slap in the face with a fat fist perhaps - something fat anyway:

Thank You Drng and Aptronym

It seems that Britain has a new Prime Minister and Surry Hills Library decided to use the dyslexic they hired under equal opportunity to run the publicity for their inaugural spelling bee.

At the Art Gallery of New South Wales

I can't understand what's happened at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Captions on walls are things that are not rushed into overnight and yet the place is littered with captions containing errors:

Presumably that was meant to read 'and wrote a memoir'.

I'm not mad about a principal passion being 'toward' something, although that is not strictly wrong. However, 'looking for way forward' is.

Shall I be boring again and point out that commas should ideally go round in pairs - there is one missing in the above caption. It should be inserted before the word 'anticipated'. Without it, the sentence is very hard to read.

I'm sorry Mr Capon, this maddens me, because it makes me read the sentence over and over again, puzzling about why it doesn't work. Whatever Edmund Capon actually said, the sentence, for the purposes of the poster, would have read better if edited thus: "This is the great Picasso show to which we have often aspired but which we have not yet achieved in Australia". It is the 'to' which makes things difficult, because the verb 'achieve' does not fit with it. You can't say, 'to which we have not yet achieved' and yet that is how the sentence is structured - as it stands, the verb 'achieved' depends on the clause beginning with that 'to'. It won't do.

They're Building a Road Now?

Shouldn't that be passers-by, rather than by-passers:

Yet Again - Spellchecker, Where Are You When We Need You?

But's that all? This is taken from a national newspaper, forsooth:

Their Holder's What?