[dailydriver]

Originally Posted by samaspire

Now when did robots get kidneys?

Just when the subeditors at The Hindu couldn't decide who has outdated arms - the forest staff or the smugglers,

Forest staff face smugglers with outdated arms

the paper's Readers' Editor chose to write a column titled When headlines fail (in the same edition).

*Merlin R. Mann, a journalism teacher in the U.S., has come up with a TACT (taste, attractiveness, clarity and truth) test for headlines. He expects every subeditor to ask these questions of each headline:

“Is it in good taste?

Anything offensive in any way?

Can anything be taken a wrong way?

Does it attract the reader’s attention?

How can it be improved without sacrificing accuracy?

Does it communicate clearly, quickly?

Any confusion?

Any odd words, double meanings?

Is it accurate, true? Proper words used?

Is the thrust of subject-verb true?”

He says a ‘no’ to any of these questions is a veto, and urges the desk to rethink the headline.

* Have changed the formatting of the quoted lines to reflect the questions clearly.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Just checking to see if my arms have expired

[Saanil]

Hi Guys,

I was hoping to get some suggestions from experts here on a good book which teaches the basics of English grammar. I used to refer to Wren & Martin during my school days but wanted to know if there are other books which might be better.

[hemanth.anand]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

Today evening, I'll check the entire day's video and then post the videos of both daytime and night time and give a final conclusion.

Is the part in bold alright (ignore my handle in bold, I'm ok ), or is it redundant?

[binand]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

Is the part in bold alright (ignore my handle in bold, I'm ok ), or is it redundant?

Well, "final conclusion" is certainly a tautology in the context you have quoted. But it is a formal concept in Philosophy:

https://systematicphilosophy.com/201...al-conclusion/

[samaspire]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

Is the part in bold alright (ignore my handle in bold, I'm ok ), or is it redundant?

Shouldn't it be "the final verdict"?
Or "the final conclusion"?

[dailydriver]

Aren't the folks working in English language newspapers supposed to be sensitive to the nuances of the language? Here are two bloopers I found in the same report published in yesterday's Deccan Herald. A sensible proofreader would have picked them out at a glance.

...Again at the arrival area, the girl restored to sloganeering after which I confronted her. She told me it was her democratic right,"

I am also told she wrote on Twitter that she wanted to shot '... down, down'

[binand]

Originally Posted by dailydriver

Aren't the folks working in English language newspapers supposed to be sensitive to the nuances of the language?

We have a WhatsApp-based system to exchange these sort of bloopers in MSM (screenshots, tv grabs, newspaper photos etc.). Some examples from Indian papers in the last few months or so, that we collected are below.

[V.Narayan]

This one is for lovers of the English language. Came upon it today despite not subscribing to either FB or WA. Forgive me if everyone on FB and WA has seen this a thousand times.

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud. But guys he was a Frenchman!

Read on....

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!


English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

[Thad E Ginathom]

Sorry, I got bored about half way through, but, up to that point, head not seen anything that any English speaker should get wrong!

It's just the way our language is: full of inconsistency.

[dailydriver]

A report in Amedabad Mirror about claims that Tottenham Hotspur won't really be weakened in the absence of striker Harry Edward Kane was titled thus:

ABLE WITHOUT KANE

Creativity at its best .

[binand]

Originally Posted by dailydriver

Creativity at its best

Not really new; seeing that the same headline has been used in the past by many others:

2015: https://www.eurosport.com/football/e...64/story.shtml

2017: https://www.independent.ie/sport/soc...-36268843.html

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted by binand

Not really new; seeing that the same headline has been used in the past by many others

The Mirror story was credited to Reuters and hence I had an inkling it could have had a history. Thanks for confirming the same with the links.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Was it a transfer? Was the transfer fee a mess of pottage?

(Oh wait: that wasn't Kane and Abel. Some guy called Esau. Oh well, never mind )

[dailydriver]

Please do not take this as an adverse comment on the writing skill of the poster. It is not. (He shall remain unnamed and untraceable - through this post at least)

It is just an oversight that has however vested an entirely new meaning to a set of innocuous words.

From Vellore, I'm planning a visit to the Mysore zoo, stay overnight there and then proceed to Masinagudi.

Does the there in the sentence refer to the Mysore zoo? .