Record Low Temp Occured 16,000 Years Into the Future?

18,915? Huh? Settle down, now, Eyewitness News. Stop trying to play mind games. Everybody knows the record low of 55 degrees in New York City on August 18 couldn't possibly have happened some 16,000 years in the future. However, it is possible that proofreading will still be in vogue in 18,915. So look at the bright side: Everyone at WABC has over 16,000 years to master those all-important proofreading skills. Should be plenty of time to nail it down.

The Proofreader caught this one a few months ago--stay tuned for more mistakes that Proofreader has been too busy to post over the last few months as he cleans off his desktop.

Sloppy Copy In Allen Iverson Coverage

Now that N.B.A. malcontent Allen Iverson has been released by the Memphis Grizzlies, rumors are swirling in the sports media about which team, if any, will take a chance on signing the aging guard to a contract. In its haste to enter the conversation about the possibility of the Knicks picking up Iverson, Yahoo! Sports has saddled its readers with some sloppy copy, likely the result of a proofreading fail.

As you can see highlighted in the screen shot above, the last line reads, "Isn't now the time to a few Greek teams to say they'd take Iverson in a heartbeat?"

There should be a "for" after "time" in that sentence rather than a "to," so that it reads: Isn't now the time for a few Greek teams to say they'd take Iverson in a heartbeat?

Also, the very sentence above it is borderline sloppy. It's definitely messy. But, it's not the type of ironclad sloppiness worthy of highlighter ink, like the last line is. Come on, Yahoo! Sports. Just because an N.B.A. team is about to make an epic mistake by signing Iverson doesn't mean you fine people need to make little blunders in your coverage of that mistake.

Proofreader Job Posting Sullied By Lack of Proofreading

This type of irony has been featured several times before here on the blog: A company looking for a proofreader fails to demonstrate competent proofreading ability in the very job posting seeking the proofreader.

Oh, the stupidity! Look at the mess highlighted below: Bilingual shouldn't be hyphenated; What the F is "Sapnish"?; and English and Spanish, two proud languages, are repeatedly demeaned by a lack of capitalization. This posting is patently disgraceful.


These types of job postings at once elucidate a company's immediate, glaring need and expose the surprising (yet amusing) ineptitude of those charged with satisfying that need. Today's example comes from a posting on Mediabistro.com made by the glorified temp agency Adecco Creative, a repeat offender. Evidently, the only thing creative about this temp agency is the myriad ways in which it mangles the English language in print.

Job applicants who see this posting must be unable to help wondering which "world renowned" publishing company would allow itself to be represented so unprofessionally by an outside agency. If any readers can share any info on which company is looking to fill this post, please contact the Proofreader. Adecco Creative never responded to e-mailed questions.

Also, the Proofreader would like to take this opportunity to remind proofreading-challenged companies, like Adecco Creative, that they can seek proofreading services from the good sponsors of this site--just scroll down and look below, in the right column. Click the various ads and see which company might best meet your proofreading and copy editing needs!

Woes Continue For Job Seekers, Job Posters

The unemployment has rate vaulted over ten percent in the U.S. Unemployment benefits continue getting extended by state governments and the federal government. As if that news isn't depressing enough, many employers, either frightened by the continuously growing mob of job seekers or defiantly mocking that mob, continue making silly, juvenile blunders in their online job postings.

Today's example of proofreading buffoonery comes to you courtesy of the H.R. people over at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. As you can see highlighted in the above screen shot, according to a job posting strewn about the Internet, MetLife is looking to hire a Director of "Comminications."

No doubt--the "I" and "U" keys sit right next to each other on the QWERTY keyboard, making for an easy typo opportunity. But this typo could've been averted with careful proofreading. You'd think that, when hiring for a communications position, MetLife would want to communicate to applicants in a way that wouldn't distract/annoy/amuse/infuriate those applicants.

Presumably, careful proofreading and straightening out idiotic communications problems will fall under the purview of the lucky sap to land this gig.

How (NOT) To Proofread a Job Posting

In the same week that the unemployment rate marched past ten percent (for the first time since 1983), yet another employer looking to pluck one of the poor, out-of-work saps from the ever-expanding abyss of unemployment made a copy mistake in its online job posting. The company in question spelled its own name wrong. Dumbasses!

This time, as you can see highlighted in the above screen shot, the culprit is Howcast Media, Inc. Not Howcast "Meida," as the company might have you believe in its job posting on Mandy.com. Howcast is a relatively new Internet company that traffics in how-to videos.

Interestingly, Howcast has a section of its site dedicated to counseling people on how to accomplish various career-related activities. The eternally kind folks at Howcast even have a video that shows people (evidently new to the planet) how to write a résumé.

Behold step nine of Howcast's very own "How To Write a Résumé" video:

If that's a little small for you (click on the screen shot to enlarge), Howcast's advice is, "Spell-check your work." Oh, Howcast. If only you how-to clowns would practice what you preach.

Job-seekers, the Proofreader is going to do a little Howcast impression for a second here by telling you how to apply for this job, but without the nifty video (the Proofreader works on a bare bones budget, okay).

Follow Howcast's advice and not its example when applying for this job. That's right, please make sure your own name is spelled correctly on your résumé. You cannot afford to make silly blunders like this. Not in this job market, damnit! Thank you.

Orgy of Misspellings in Blockbuster Dan Brown Novel

Last week, The Lost Symbol, the latest novel from uber popular author Dan Brown, hit the market. The occasion brought Brown's usual critics out in full force, on the Internet and in newspapers, for a round of the usual literary elitism. The scathing criticisms of Brown are, no doubt, many: plagiarism; factual inaccuracy; cliched writing. But, until now, the Proofreader has never had cause to deride Dan--The Da Vinci Code was awesome! Now, the Proofreader has no choice but to join the chorus of critics and lambaste the 2000 novel Angels & Demons for its repeated, defiant misspellings.

As always, the Proofreader never singles out the writer for these types of idiotic blunders because they are really the faults of the editors and proofreaders who get paid to catch them. And he doesn't intend to wantonly single out the writer in this instance (these mistakes really aren't his fault), but since Brown's name's on the novel and for SEO reasons, it's imperative to mention his name in the post. Plus, Brown has hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions more on their way into his bank account and he doesn't care if some silly proofreading blogger is mocking one of his books. Now, onto the mistakes, shall we?
As you can see highlighted in the above picture of page 269 of Angels & Demons, the name Alfa Romeo (a famous Italian car brand) is misspelled twice as "Alpha" Romeo. The first of the two names is actually an acronym for "Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili," an Italian phrase meaning "Lombard Automobile Factory, Public Company." Instead, Brown used "alpha," most commonly known as the first letter of the Greek alphabet.

This is a colossal mistake. Do you know how many people read and re-read and proofread a book before it gets published? Or how many times it's read over and over? The Proofreader doesn't either, but he knows whatever the number is, it's a lot. And the above isn't one isolated example of a mistake. The same blunder happens over and over throughout the novel. See here for all of the examples the Google Books preview of Angels & Demons will allow you to see.

Here, have a look at page 174.
Notice that Brown, or a researcher/proofreader/copy editor at Pocket Books (a division of Simon & Schuster), went so far as to research a particular model of Alfa Romeo car--the 155 T-Spark--but didn't double check the spelling of the car's brand name.

Moreover, "T-Sparks" is erroneous. That's a reference to "Twin Spark," a type of engine made by Alfa Romeo that's standard in most of its cars. Making the term plural (T-Sparks) is most definitely a mistake.

For a commercially published novel, these mistakes are unbelievable! Evidently, the suits over at Pocket Books were appalled as well and, when the book was reprinted in 2006, the Alfa misspellings were all corrected. But they still missed the "T-Sparks" mistake. Compare the below pics from the reprint with the above.

Errors Aplenty In Times Baseball Column

Summer. The weather heats up (or warms up, this year), the days are longer, the overall pace of life slows down a little and people take all kinds of measures to maximize their enjoyment of the season. Often, those measures involve a vacation of one type or another. For many, the vacations are all mental. Good, old-fashioned escapism. Perhaps this explains the recent lapses over at The New York Times, because it seems like whatever Times employees have been editing and proofreading the Op-Extra "Heading Home" column have been on a protracted mental vacation. Come on, Times H.R. department--give these people a real vacation so they can refresh, recharge and return to form! The mistakes lately have been silly and elementary.

The first one, an instance of bad HTML, happened in a column published nearly a month ago titled "Fehr's Game." Interestingly, this isn't the first time "Heading Home" has been plagued by bad HTML. As you can see above, in the second-to-last paragraph of the column's first page, the word "all" appeared printed with HTML tags intended to make the word appear italicized. This one was corrected rather quickly, but was unable to elude the Proofreader.


Next, as you can see above, yesterday's installment of the column contained a spelling error that was probably caused by a typo. The writer was looking for the word "choose," but ended up typing the past tense "chose," which turned out to also be the wrong tense.

These mistakes are a shame, because they mar what is an otherwise great column that gives readers a unique perspective of a real MLB player's view of baseball and the world. There's no excuse for these silly blunders that only distract from the fine content. Hopefully, a vacation is in order for the editors and proofreaders in question. Everyone needs vacations, even proofreaders. Check that. Especially proofreaders!

Mistake In Madoff Coverage

No, the Proofreader is not dead. And no, pro journalists haven't stopped making printed mistakes that shouldn't have been made. The Proofreader was just too busy the last few weeks to provide adequate attention to the blog and to the mistakes that have been made. Be assured there are plenty of mistakes to be pointed out, some sent in by readers. Today the hobby resumes with a spelling error in an article on NBC's local New York site. The blunder happened a few weeks ago when Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison.

As you can see highlighted in the screen shot above, NBC Web editors let a misspelling of "shielded" slip by them. The article has since been revised and thus lacks the original error. While Madoff's sentence for fleecing multitudes of investors is 150 years in the big house, NBC Web editors get a much lighter sentence for their offense: Being immortalized on the Internet for infinity for all to chuckle at.

Check back later this week for more mistakes, some big, some small.

Bad Spelling In TVNewser Headline

It's a rather boring blog that covers the rather boring topic of television news. But just because it's a blog and it's steeped in boredom doesn't mean TVNewser is exempt from employing adequate proofreading practices. Still, an apparent lapse in proofreading proficiency occured last Tuesday, as you can see in the highlighted screen shot below.

In the headline of this post, about families of soldiers who were upset that news of their loved ones' deaths was overshadowed by the tsunami of Michael Jackson death coverage in the media, TVNewser editors allowed soldiers to be misspelled "soliders." Headline blunders never cease to confound the Proofreader. The text is in big, bold letters. It's not that hard to give it a quick once-over before clicking the "Publish Post" button, now is it?

The error has since been corrected, but still...Soliders? C'mon, it's a headline. Proofread, damnit.

Copy Editors Distracted By Hot Bodies, Perhaps?

Right on the heels of Tuesday's post is another mistake you can file in your "copy editors distracted by accompanying photo" box, which you no doubt have. (Doesn't everybody?) Unfortunately, though, for the much-maligned Newsday Web editors, the Proofreader has learned his lesson about giving out Mulligans, so there won't be any more of that nonsense.

Lately, there's no shortage of nonsense from Newsday.com, although this mistake is almost excusable. Evidently, like what perhaps happened to the editors out in Portland, Newsday Web editors were so engrossed with the hot bodies in the picture above that they missed the spelling error in the first line of the deck. Hot bodies or not, these are pro journalists, so the mistake is officially inexcusable.

"Hubub" is close, but not right. They were looking for hubbub, two Bs, as everyone who's not busy checking out the bodies of Kara DioGuardi (who is that? Seriously. The Proofreader's not wasting time to Google her name) and Bikini Girl. However, it's possible that the editors there weren't distracted by the scantily clad bodies and, rather, just aren't that competent because they've been making a lot of mistakes lately.

Cool Picture, Uncool Mistakes

A couple of weeks ago, a local news channel in Portland posted on its Web site this very interesting story about unusually low tides off the Oregon coast. Unfortunately, as Midwest correspondent Stan Kost noticed, the third line of the article, a collaborative effort by KGW.com and the A.P., lacked the preposition "of" where it should've been printed, between "remains" and "shipwrecks," as you can see in the highlighted screen shot below.

Now, it's very possible that the two editorial teams made this mistake because they were distracted by the coolness of the art accompanying the story. How often do you get to see real shipwrecks exposed by dramatically recessed tides?

The Proofreader doesn't typically like to give out Mulligans for this sort of thing. But, for the sake of argument, however unlikely it may be, say he gave these editors a mulligan because he liked the content so much. Well, then the Proofreader would expect that these two professional editorial teams would use that Mulligan wisely and get it right the second time around. Sounds fair, right?

Unfortunately, despite the generous Mulligan, they screwed up again. As you can see in the above screen shot, editors caught the original mistake and inserted an "of" where it was lacking. But then, inexplicably, they decided to rephrase the end of the sentence--and made another mistake!

D'oh!

This time they forgot to place a space between "to" and "see." Why they even tinkered with the copy any further is a mystery to the Proofreader. Aside from the missing "of," the copy was fine. Moral of the story: Leave well enough alone. Oh, and don't give out mulligans. Ever.

The Proofreader thanks Stan Kost for submitting the mistake.

Miscues In Philly

Lately the miscues in Philadelphia haven't been limited to those being made on the field by the team that plays its home games at Citizens Bank Park. No, they're happening in the media coverage of that team too. Behold the below screen shot taken from the Philly.com sports page on Monday, June 15th. On the left is the beautiful sight of Jimmy Rollins swatting a homer into the right field seats. On the right is a typo of first-grade ineptitude.


It's a tease for this article that appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News just after the Phillies salvaged the last of a three-game series with the Boston Red Sox by defeating the "Sawx" 11-6. As you can see highlighted above, there's an extraneous T in the word "the." The capital T belongs there, but the lower-case T immediately following it is clearly unnecessary and should've been caught by a proofreader before being published. Hopefully the Phillies and the Philly sports media can get things turned around--pronto!

Punctuation Problems At Post Continue

A couple of weeks ago the New York Post screwed up Yankees' pitcher A.J. Burnett's E.R.A. by placing a colon rather than a decimal point in the number. The other day the Post forgot to place an apostrophe in a contraction that appeared in a review of Conan O'Brien's first episode as host of NBC's Tonight show. The mistake was submitted by the Proofreader's good friend, and a very funny guy, Adam Wade.

The mistake appeared on page 34 of the June 2nd edition of the paper, in the third-to-last line of the article, as you can see highlighted in the picture above. In a review that critiqued Conan for being "unfunny," the Post, in a funny display of incompetence for a professional news publication, made a stupid error . The Post forgot to type an apostrophe in the contraction won't, which resulted in the word "wont."

This mistake was of the double-threat variety, as it appeared in the printed paper and, as of this post, still exists online as you can see here or in the below screen shot.

The Proofreader thanks Adam Wade for submitting the mistake.

Extraneous Word In Times Article About Leno

Well, Leno's officially gone from late night TV, but not to worry. The McDonald's of comedians will be back in a few months with a new, prime-time show. Yesterday, The New York Times ran an interesting story on its Web site analyzing what Leno's move to five-nights-a-week in prime-time might mean for the medium of television...besides more watered-down, hacky jokes and boring interviews. And, in the article, the Times left an extra word, perhaps from a previous draft, in a sentence.

The extra word occurs in the last line of the story's fifth paragraph, as you can see in the highlighted screen shot above. It seems like this sentence may have been re-worked during editing and a vestige of the old phrasing didn't get deleted. The sentence reads, "...then NBC will be left scrambling to find fill five prime-time hours a week." That "find" preceding "fill" doesn't make any sense.

Perhaps they should've simply omitted "find" or added an "er" to "fill" and followed it with the word "for," so the sentence would've read, "to find filler for five prime-time hours a week." That would've been less efficient, but at least it would have made sense.

As of now, this mistake has not been corrected on the Web site. Plus, this isn't the first time the Times has made an error in its Leno coverage. The Proofreader caught a factual inaccuracy in an article last December, which was distributed to many other news services.

Job Posting For Copy Editor Needed Copy Editing

Job postings for proofreaders or copy editors written with sloppy copy are some of the most amusing and, simultaneously, scary examples that get highlighted on the blog. What makes them so great is that these employers know they need help and, even when asking for it, can't manage to avoid letting third-grade mistakes get published online. It's the kind of unparalleled mix of self-awareness and incompetence that can only be displayed by Human Resources people, who typically can't read beyond a third-grade level.

The above screen shot, taken a couple of months ago and highlighted for your viewing convenience, contains three mistakes that never should've been made. "Editting," which reared its ugly head twice, should, as any elementary school student knows, be editing, with one T, not two. And name of the magazine is Woman's World, not "Women's World," as this posting would have you believe. It's not clear which employer sought this copy editor, but whichever publication was looking to hire outsourced the task to Adecco Creative, a glorified temp agency.

What's so scary about this is that the clowns responsible for this mess are the very people who advised the employer on which applicants are the strongest candidates for the position. The Proofreader's not sure how that's logically possible.

Wait a second. Aren't copy mistakes in job postings for proofreaders and copy editors a sly way for employers to weed out weak candidates? Only the applicants who mention the errors in their cover letter get contacted because it's assumed those that didn't mention the mistakes didn't notice them, right? Perhaps in some postings. That's an old trick, but not the case with this job posting. The Proofreader spoke to the headhunter at Adecco looking to fill this position and that individual said these mistakes were genuine and not intentional. Yep, funny and scary at the same time, especially in this economy. Best of luck to ya, job seekers!