The Oops Factor: Corrections and Clarifications

In the Corrections and Clarifications column of The Guardian, readers' editor Siobhain Butterworth fesses up to "significant errors" that have appeared in recent issues of this venerable British newspaper. And what makes an error "significant"? That, says Butterworth, is in part determined by her "personal prejudices."

Last December, for example, she admitted that "We were wrong to report that Mark Wallinger made an appearance in a bear suit at the British Comedy Awards. He did not attend the event in a bear suit or indeed at all."

Witty, pithy, and (apparently) true: what more could a reader ask for?

Occasionally some commonly confused words blunder on to the pages of The Guardian:

• "Marlon Brando would probably have flaunted his sexual conquests rather than flouted them, as we had it in our obituary of Christian Brando."
  (February 1, 2008)


• "A headline, page 5, Business sense, September 29, read: 'Less queues, more views . . .' As many readers pointed out, it should have read, 'Fewer queues etc.' Fewer queues would mean less queuing."
  (October 1, 2005)

Errors induced by homophones may be particularly instructive to other writers. At least that's my excuse for keeping this record of recent sound-alike entries.

• "Australian cricketer Don Bradman was carried, not curried, off the field during the Ashes series in August 1938."
  (November 12, 2007)


• "We meant copyrighting, not copywriting in 'Give me back my lobster,' page 19, G2, July 4. We were talking about intellectual property rather than writing advertising slogans. Peasants wring, rather than ring, the necks of chickens."
  (July 9, 2007)


• "We should have said that Sven-Goran Eriksson was trying to defuse, rather than diffuse, what we described as 'a powder-keg moment'; he was trying to make things better, not worse."
  (February 25, 2008)


• "Homophone corner: 'She wrote a book about the elicit trade in organs and body parts.'"
  (November 5, 2007)


• "Homophone corner: 'He has in principal agreed to support [a school] with a partner in north Kensington.'"
  (November 29, 2007)


• "There was an error in Cryptic Crossword No 24204 (page 31, October 10). The clue given for 18 down was 'German numero uno infiltrating group as kaiser?' The answer was reigning, but only the homophone, reining would fit."
  (October 16, 2007)

Butterworth's finest moment came last fall in this crisp correction of a spelling error that had appeared, where else, but in her own column:

We misspelled the word misspelled twice, as mispelled, in the Corrections and Clarifications column on September 26, page 30.
(September 28, 2007)

Responding to the Oops Factor:

• Clearing Up Common Confusions
• 200 Commonly Misspelled Words
• Fifteen Common Errors and How to Fix Them