It does my dyslexic heart good to know that the mighty Grauniad can make so many mistakes that it has to have a ‘Corrections and Clarifications Column Editor’ – we could do with one around here.

Today they excelled themselves, for the Corrections and Clarifications Editor was forced to……..make corrections and clarifications. He obviously doesn’t want to be out of a job, for he has left a deliberate (?) error to make way for tomorrow’s ‘corrections and clarifications of corrections and clarifications of corrections and clarifications’……..

See if you can spot it.

This column has itself been guilty of errors in recent days, and months. Here is a roundup of them:

•?Charles Kennedy, part 2: a correction – 7 June, page 30 – said that a G2 feature about the Liberal Democrats went awry when it included Charles Kennedy – once a Social Democrat MP, later a Lib Dem leader – among liberals who originally belonged to the Labour party. However, Parliamentary Profiles 1997-2002 (by Andrew Roth and Byron Griddle, volume E-K) records Charles Kennedy as saying, “in Fort William I joined the Labour Party at the age of 15″ in 1974 (Who agrees with Nick now?, 2 June, page 6).

•?Part of a correction – 5 June, page 40 – said that an article had wrongly credited Renzo Piano as the architect of Milan’s San Siro stadium. In the piece, San Siro was among three stadiums listed in the sentence in question, with Piano’s name bracketed after the last, Bari’s San Nicola stadium. The writer clarifies that only that last stadium was being attributed, rightly, to Piano (Perfect pitch, 31 May, page 18, G2).

•?The location of Fintry was “corrected” on 3 April, page 32, to Lanarkshire. Notwithstanding its postcode, Fintry is in Stirlingshire.

•?A piece about a day trip from Cape Town – 27 February, page 2, Travel – said that Kalk Bay’s hillside cottages looked on to the Atlantic. That was right (Kalk Bay falling to the west of Cape Agulhas), and should not have been “corrected” to the Indian Ocean in the column of 31 March, page 32.

For the truly tormented you can have the answer tomorrow morning…

Edited to add – my question relates to what is here, however if you go to the Guardian’s page on which this appears, you can spot another howler not an inch or two away for a bonus prize.

Eddie KentJune 12, 2010 at 13:02

No, no, no! You cannot have ‘onto’ – that is a specialist mathematics word.
In English you must use ‘on to’. I have spoken.

Anon 00:32June 10, 2010 at 02:32

Ignoring the possible factual error(s) as posted by others ……

“days, and months” there should not be a comma before and
“part 2: a
correction” should be capital A after colon
“now?, 2 June, page 6).” there
should not be a comma after ?
“on to the Atlantic” should be onto
“Cape
Agulhas), and” comma before and again

The grammar sucks – seems about right for a “meejaa” studies graduate”
@Grauniad

Anna
RaccoonJune 10, 2010 at 08:38

Morning Folks,
I had intended the answer to this to be ‘Byron Griddle’
– it should be ‘Byron Criddle’- and the bonus points would have been for
spotting the ‘from from’ in the box on the right ‘from the Guardian’, but
you are such sharp eyed monsters who have found sooooo many errors in the
‘corrections and clarifications column’ that I am thinking of sending the
whole thread into Private Eye……
No wonder I don’t stand a chance with you
– where was ‘Pedant’ last night anyway?
Ms Smudd has already offered her
apologies for absence without leave in another thread……

AlanJune 10, 2010 at 01:48

Thanks to Google I now know there is a Fintry in Aberdeenshire.

This is the offending sentence for the soccerball correction
correction:

“Munich’s Allianz Arena, Milan’s San Siro, Bari (by Renzo Piano), Wembley
(Norman Foster) and Berlin’s beautifully remodelled Olympiastadion show how
far inspiring design can enhance the beautiful game.”

It doesn’t mention the San Nicola and it names 4 stadiums not 3.

English Viking
June 10, 2010 at 01:58

See, you’ve found another one, Fintry in Aberdeenshire.

Tsk! These haggis- gulping, caber tossing, Wallace loving apes are so
repetitious. Next thing they’ll want their ‘FREEEEEDOM’!!!!!

PS Guess what happened to the last kilt that shouted so?

English Viking
June 10, 2010 at 00:06

Only Jocks would know this without Google.

There are at least two places called ‘Fintry’ in Jockland. One is in
Stirlingshire, the other is in Lanarkshire, therefore the correction was not
required.

Dopey porridge-gobblers. If they spent less time beating their wives and
getting bong-eyed on Special Brew, they might have remembered that they have
already called a place by a certain name before they call another by the
same.

TimOfEngland
June 10, 2010 at 10:51

Well they don’t have the exclusive on it…

The south has two places called Ashford (Middlesex and Kent)!

PericlesJune 10, 2010 at 11:07

And I don

SadButMadLad
June 9, 2010 at 22:58

Can’t see it. Must be blind. Only guess I can make is its about the Charles
Kennedy story.

How long did it take you to spot it?