Juxtaposition: cocaine deaths / adult cot death

Sarah pointed out this recent Metro front cover to me:



The lead headline reads:
Cocaine deaths jump by a fifth

The headline above the photo of the teenage girl reads:
'Angel' who died in her sleep at 16

At first glance, Sarah assumed that the girl had died after taking cocaine. However the copy alongside the photo begins:

This is Kelly Blair, a bubbly teenager whose life was cut short when she died in her sleep. The 16-year-old, described by her parents as their 'special angel', is thought to have been a victim of adult cot death, which kills around 150 people in Britain a year.

In other words, the picture caption is entirely unrelated to the cocaine story.

Sarah would like to know whether the juxtaposition of the two stories was intentional or unintentional. I'm not sure. What do you think?

thelondonpap

Gareth emailed in to say:

I picked up a free paper on the Tube the other day and was surprised to see it had been rebranded. However I think the new name more accurately reflects its contents - see attached. (Of course, it could always be a really unfortunate page layout.)

And here's the paper in question:



Brilliant - thanks, Gareth.

Credit crunch or recession?

Today's Metro includes the following news headline:

Bag snatches
rise as credit
crunch bites

Perhaps someone should let the paper know that 'credit crunch' isn't a synonym for 'recession'.

Tellingly, the body copy doesn't mention 'credit crunch' once but does refer to "rising unemployment... caused by the recession".

However I suppose that neither 'recession' nor 'unemployment' would have fit quite so easily in that three-deck headline.

(I would scan in the article but the scanner seems to be on the blink.)

What's wrong with cow paté?

So yesterday I read this in English for Journalists (Second Edition), by Wynford Hicks:

If your house style includes accents, make sure that you use them consistently. For example 'paté' and 'emigré' are howlers; they should be pâté and émigré.

And then today I saw this Rick Brookes cartoon in Metro (click on the image for a larger version):


(Incidentally, the picture above is actually a screenshot from the free electronic edition of Metro. For me, the main advantage of the e-edition over the print edition is that the text is searchable.)

Hot news from South Island

Mrs A and I enjoy a relaxed lifestyle in our seaside retreat, but there's no shortage of blues-and-twos action in the local weekly to keep our pulses racing. These examples were culled from the two latest issues:

Firefighters were called to a chimney fire in Porchfield last Friday morning. The fire was out by the time they arrived at the scene.

A bonfire in a driveway on Monday evening resulted in an emergency call to firefighters. One pump was called after receiving a report the bonfire was close to parked cars.

Firefighters used a bucket of water to extinguish a small rubbish fire in a bath during the small hours of Saturday morning.

The IW Fire and Rescue Service was called out to rescue a ten-year-old boy stuck up a tree in Ryde on Saturday evening. Firefighters used an extension ladder to rescue the boy, who was stuck 16ft from the ground. They had previously freed a teenage girl from a child's swing at the play area in Park Road, Cowes.

A box containing paper on fire in Regent Street, Shanklin, was put out by firefighters on Tuesday. It happened at around 2.15am.

A fire in a skip at Somerton Industrial Park on Thursday was extinguished within 20 minutes of being reported at 8.20am.

A small gorse fire was put out near Ventnor Golf Club at around 9pm on Sunday. The incident, which involved around a three metre-square* area, was over by 9.30pm.

* Following JD's recent Orwellian post, I can't resist suggesting "one hyphen good – two hyphens better".

Typo: foul-lane carriageway

Stan from the excellent language blog Sentence first has sent in this scan from the Galway City Tribune, pointing out the typo at the end of the first par (as usual, click on the image to see a larger version):


He writes:

The road in question is a nice little jam-generator, so it's a particularly apt typo. I am a little conflicted, because it's a good newspaper, but amusement trumps politics again.

Thanks, Stan!

Micro-organisms vs micro-organists

Clutchslip forwarded on this amusing screengrab from the thisiscrawley.co.uk website ("brought to you by Crawley News").

As ever, click on the image to see a larger, more legible version.



"Must be a very small church," says Clutchslip.

Slightly more seriously, confusing micro-organisms with micro-organists is a rather strange error. An example of the Cupertino effect, perhaps?

Oh, and here's the offending article:
Council's rubbish decision leaves Crawley pensioner fuming

Terry Pratchett and Peach Pie Street

The novelist – and knight – Terry Pratchett is a former sub, and so here at The Engine Room we follow his career with some interest (as regular readers of the blog will already know).

On Monday I spotted the following in the Metro free paper (click to see a larger version):


The body copy refers to 'Peace Pie Street' when the photo clearly shows 'Peach Pie Street'. Admittedly, they both make nice names.

(The sign pictured above is "another fantasy-inspired street sign" because the full Metro article also included a photo of 'Treacle Mine Road'. I decided not to scan in the entire thing, but you can see the other photo if you like in the web version of the story – which as I write this still includes the Peace/Peach mistake.)

Here are our previous Pratchett ponderings:

• Arise, sir Terry: former sub Pratchett is knighted

• Independent: Pratchett blooper

• The sign of the relieved canine

This year's best April Fool's Day stories

None of the publications I work on ran an April Fool's Day story today, but here are some others I enjoyed:


Your Local Guardian: 'Croydon to be renamed in £50m scheme'

Guardian.co.uk: 'Twitter switch for Guardian, after 188 years of ink'

Diss Express: 'Obama to visit Diss'

Buyitdirect.co.uk: 'Free funerals from Laptops Direct'


If you have any other favourites from this year, let me know and I'll happily add them to the list. Your contributions so far (thank you!):

EcoAsia: 'Interstellar spacecraft to be TV powered'

Writer's Digest: 'Announcing a Brand-New Market Book!'

The topic of the Writer's Digest story is a (fictitious) book called Plagiarist's Market, and the ISBN given for that book actually belongs to a rhyming picture book called April Foolishness. A nice touch there.


Update 8.40pm: I've spotted another hoax, this time on YouTube. The site has a "new layout" which displays video clips upside down, as per this screengrab:



And rather amusingly, all of today's 'Spotlight Videos' on YouTube show things that in some way relate to the theme of upside-downness, from bats to handstands.

I do, however, note that the site isn't displaying its adverts upside down. April Fool's is all very well, unless it upsets the advertisers...

YouTube: 'Your New Viewing Experience'

Jade Goody still lives

Something topical for a change on The Engine Room. Gareth wrote in this morning with the following:

Spotted an interesting headline on the front page of the London Lite last night.

The headline, under a big picture of Jade Goody, was "JADE: FEARS JACK IS ABOUT TO BE JAILED".

To which the obvious answer is: "I bet she doesn't, she's been dead for two days."

I know what they were trying to do with this, but I can't help thinking it backfired a bit!

Ah yes, but you forget that Jade Goody still lives – "in the hearts of the people".

Apologies to anyone reading this who has never heard of Jade Goody.

Due to the bad weather

A letter in today's thelondonpaper begins:

I am very discouraged to see signs up everywhere, both official and unofficial, starting with "Due to the bad weather..." This is as ungrammatical as "Ten items or less", as seen in supermarkets. It doesn't take much to get it right. We seem to be dumbing-down to a woeful degree in this country so as not to make things too difficult for people who can't cope.

I understand the '10 items or less' argument, but what is this letter-writer's problem with 'due to the bad weather'? He doesn't say, and for the life of me I can't work it out.

Can anyone enlighten me?

Photo special: dinning room and loft conversation

If you want a quiet life, I wouldn't recommend buying this house. After all, its features include a dinning room and a loft conversation...



(I can't actually remember where this photo came from. I'm assuming I scanned it myself, but if anyone emailed it in – thank you.)

UPDATE 05/02/09: My mum has reminded me that she sent in the photo. Thanks, Mum! And apparently the house is still being advertised for sale...

News from the island: 1

Fed up with being bombarded with big stories? In the first of an occasional series, here's a news brief from the local paper that serves my adopted home, the Isle of Wight:

A child became stuck in a trolley at Sainsbury's, Newport on Thursday morning last week. She had been freed by the time the fire brigade arrived.

Well, it made me smile.

My pet hates: the word 'new'

All subs have their bugbears or pet hates, and one of mine is the misuse of the word 'new'. For example, London free newspaper Metro today carries a small science story saying that:

Cannabis has new healing properties - it can treat severe eczema and other skin complaints.

Er, yes, cannabis probably does have those properties, but I doubt they are new. They're just newly discovered.

And when the word 'new' is appropriate, the papers seem reluctant to use it. Also today, the Mirror talks about "Paris Hilton's new-style humility" since being released from prison. What, as opposed to her old-style humility?

Update: just thought of another example. In our work, Apus and I often come across phrases such as 'manufacturer X is launching a new product'. Well, if the product is just being launched, it's probably safe to assume that it's new...