The Times, May 8, 2020
Here is a good example of someone putting zero thought into a cross-reference and being content with rubbish. A swap means an exchange and it is obviously nonsensical to suggest that shoes could be exchanged for compost. A better word would have been ‘wellies’, perhaps, or ‘gardening clogs’ – something which is the opposite of high heels.
The Times, April 30, 2020
This could have been set as a test paper for aspiring subs. In this case, the candidate failed miserably.
First, it is not clear how many chicks have hatched. The intro says two, but the rest of the copy suggests only one at time of writing. The intro also says ‘this week’ when the first chick is said to have hatched yesterday. You should never waste a yesterday line – ‘this week’ sounds like a local paper.
Second, of course they were unaware that they were being watched – they are birds. This kind of statement of the obvious is juvenile and tiresome.
In the third par, we have ‘hatch’ twice and ‘hatching’ once. One is enough. The second sentence could have been: ‘The whole process takes about 72 hours from pipping, when the shell is breached by the chick within.’
Par 4: ‘the female was laying on the eggs’. This is badly wrong. ‘Laying’ is a present tense form of ‘to lay’, which is a transitive verb, meaning that it is accompanied by an object. Examples would be ‘She is laying the table’ or ‘the bird is laying eggs’. Presumably the word was meant to be ‘lying on the eggs’, a present tense form of the word ‘to lie’. But birds don’t ‘lie’ on their eggs, they ‘sit’ on them.
Par 5: ‘Raise’ means to lift, to gain height, so ‘up’ is redundant.
In the third leg, if you are telling the story of the development of the chick, do it chronologically. Don’t start with it flying, then go back to being newly hatched. I have shown how the pars should be re-arranged.
‘Weigh in’: Jockeys weigh in after a race, and this is the only use for the expression. Babies or chicks weigh a certain amount.
Last par but one: We know the birds have a chick so by definition they are ‘successful’. Another redundant word.
Last par: We have established quite thoroughly that the story is about peregrines, so you don’t need two more repetitions of the name.
This is the weekly column which deals with readers’ criticisms of perceived inaccuracies in the Times. Oddly enough, the readers are often in the wrong. You would expect such an oracle to have a perfect grasp of English.
The Times, April 25, 2020 (I managed to cross out ‘added’ by accident)
‘Bonus’ means added or extra. ‘Added bonus’ is therefore a tautology, or a way of saying the same thing twice, as in ‘razed to the ground’.
i newspaper, April 24, 2020
I wonder how many times a day the word ‘people’ is used? Are we likely to be talking about aliens? Fish? Giraffes? It is obvious that the homes belong to people so you don’t need to say it. You should weigh every word to see if it earns its place.
i newspaper, March 3, 2020 (I think – forgot to note the exact date)
(51 words) I keep saying that shorts are the finest form of subbing. Any clot can tick up 500 words but boiling that down to 50 is an art.
This effort, with its literal and its repetition and its gibberish, is pathetic. How was the shirt recovered? Who wore it? Never mind the replica value, what is the stolen one worth? What is the design that is so terrible?
Obviously this should have been schemed with a picture, as should any story which involves the appearance of something. You can see it here.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-51729113/
Even so, this is how it could be done:
A rare Celtic shirt stolen from the National Football Museum in Manchester last weekend has been posted back anonymously. The Number 10 shirt was worn by Charlie Nicholas in the 1991/2 season and valued at £600. Last year the jagged lightning design featured in ‘the 20 worst ever strips’.
As for the heading, why would anyone say ‘restored’ rather than ‘returned’? I would suggest:
‘Worst’ football shirt
is sent off by thief
The Times, March 10, 2020
Veteran? At 52? I suppose if you are fresh out of university that is how it seems but you need to remember that most readers of newspapers are at least 52 and will not take kindly to being called ‘veteran’. The same applies to ‘elderly’ and any other reminders that we are not as young as we were.
Mail Online, February 28, 2020
First we had police painting their nails . . . this shows that you always have to think before hitting ‘send’.
Ii you must have a heading half a mile long, it could have been rephrased thus:
. . . ‘was wearing £300,000 diamond earrings when police caught her’
I don’t usually bother with Mail Online because it’s institutionally useless. But here’s a particularly glaring example of its ineptitude.
This is the moment a bride was reduced to tears as she married her terminally ill partner of 12 years who was told he has just months left to live.
Alan Birch, 37, was told he had three to nine months after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of mouth cancer more than a year ago.
The clean-living father from the Wirral, who does not smoke or drink, exchanged vows with Debbie McDonough in an emotional service in front of more than 150 people.
The bride stood proudly beside Mr Birch’s seven children and the newlyweds posed with Laurel and Hardy lookalikes, at Christ Church in Moreton, Dorset.
The loved-up couple were then taken to Leasowe Castle hotel where a 30-minute helicopter ride was laid on for them.
And so on . . .
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8032011/Heartbreaking-moment-weeping-bride-marries-cancer-stricken-fianc-just-months-live.html
February 22, 2020
You’d think even the idiots at Mail Online would take care to get things right with something so sensitive. But no.
The couple were married at Christ Church, Moreton, Wirral. But Mail Online has given the location as Moreton, Dorset – 300 miles away. The only explanation for such a ridiculous error is that some reporter or sub has looked up ‘Moreton’ and banged in the first Moreton he saw.
Yet all they had to do was read the copy and see that the reception was held at Leasowe Castle, which is in Moreton, Wirral. If the sub did not know where Leasowe Castle was, he or she should have checked it. Or that the poor bridegroom comes from Wirral – why would a dying man from Wirral travel to Dorset to get married?
The mistake has been pointed out on the Comments section below the story, but remains uncorrected after at least 24 hours. Several other news websites have picked up the story and repeated the error.
Incidentally, I feel the expression ‘loved-up’ is quite inappropriate in a story of this nature.
The Times, February 11, 2020
This is a gopher:
It is a rodent from America.
The word wanted here is ‘gofer’, derived from ‘go for’, meaning a person you can tell to go for something. In other words a dogsbody or assistant.
i newspaper, February 10, 2020
Cancellation means scrapping an event entirely. The only event in this story which was cancelled was the London Winter Run. All the football and rugby matches were postponed, in other words they will be rescheduled. The horse races were cancelled, but the parlance for this is ‘abandoned’. You could use ‘called off’ for a postponement providing you make it clear that it will go ahead at a later date.