Errors & Omissions
Errors & Omissions: Sometimes just the simple facts will do – and no fatuous extras
If you try to tart up simple information with topical chat you risk turning fatuous. An article on Wednesday about design discussed the origins of the word "ergonomics": "Those who are irritated by composites like Brangelina or Jedward won't like this, but ergonomics is a portmanteau word too – a combination of the Greek ergos and nomos (work and natural laws)."
Inside Errors & Omissions
Errors & Omissions: The Cost of War in Afghanistan
Friday, 20 November 2009
In last Sunday's article, 'Vast Majority of Britons back IoS call for UK forces to leave', we referred to Oxfam's report, The Cost of War in Afghanistan. We would like to make it clear that this report reflected the cost of the war over the last thirty years and not merely the last eight years.'
Errors & Omissions: Shocking revelation... other rival newspapers really do exist
Saturday, 7 November 2009
Remember the email from the late Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe complaining about a lack of helicopters in Afghanistan? Well, I'm going to tell you a secret. The existence of the email was first disclosed in the Daily Mail.
Errors & Omissions: A stone's throw from yet another tiresome cliché
Saturday, 31 October 2009
An arresting quotation drew the reader in to a report on Monday about a secondary school with its own small zoo. "'You want the head's study?' the receptionist asked. 'It's past the ducks and the alpaca and then it's on the left.'"
Errors & Omissions: Some vehicles should never have been allowed on the road
Saturday, 24 October 2009
We reported on Wednesday the news that plans to make a film about the relationship between Edwina Mountbatten and Jawaharlal Nehru had been put on hold. In referring to Working Title, the production company behind the project, we said that "its biggest-grossing films include the romantic comedies and Hugh Grant vehicles Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral".
Errors & Omissions: Stick to English if you want to avoid the trap of foreign phrases
Saturday, 17 October 2009
This newspaper has a bad habit of making a hash of foreign languages. We have been at it again.
Errors & Omissions: Some see it as a joke – others see a blasphemous headline
Saturday, 10 October 2009
This headline appeared above a football match report on Monday: "Galacticos fall at the feet of Jesus." (Readers who do not follow football need to know that the Galacticos are the Real Madrid side; they had lost to Seville, one of whose goals was scored by a player called Jesus Navas.)
Errors & Omissions: Meanings come and go, but some things never change
Saturday, 3 October 2009
A blurb published in yesterday's Arts and Books section displayed a rare example of a common type of confusion: "After a four-year break from film, the actress who emanates a misfit's primal energy is back."
Errors & Omissions: London has its place – and it's not at the centre of the universe
Saturday, 26 September 2009
That the following was written by one of our political correspondents may perhaps be some mitigation. They spend their working lives inside the "Westminster village", where even the outer suburbs of London must come to seem like the distant steppes of central Asia.
Errors & Omissions: It's not just vocabulary that gets lost across the Atlantic
Saturday, 19 September 2009
Aged pedants who moan about "Americanisms" usually mean items of vocabulary, such as "sidewalk" and "apartment", failing to remember how much duller the English language would be, especially its political vocabulary, without such American expressions as "bandwagon", "filibuster" and "pork barrel". Less often noted are the differences of syntax.
Errors & Omissions: Xxxxxx marks the spot where the headline should have been
Saturday, 12 September 2009
I think the little heading was intended to say something like "Presidential popularity". It headed a panel that formed part of a foreign news spread published on Thursday, about President Obama's healthcare reforms. Unfortunately it came out in later editions as "Xxxxxx".
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