Rant: stupid headlines.

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Almost every time I read an article on the Daily Mail, I find glaring howlers.



Most tabloids should probably sack all their twenty-something writers, and consider employing people from the older generation. Older people will have received a decent education, back in the days before grammar was scrapped from the National Curriculum, and will actually know how to construct proper sentences.

"The Queen laid a wreath in honour of those who died this afternoon during her historic visit to Ireland."

I wasn't aware anyone had died there this afternoon. Did a bomb go off after all?

"The (almost calorie) free lunch."

A free lunch? That would be great. But it sounds too good to be true. Are you sure you don't mean "(almost) calorie-free?"

There's no such thing as editing any more. Or, if there is, the editors don't know how to write, either.

*sigh*

The Telegraph is terrible too. It makes me quite annoyed when I read articles with glaring errors. They could at least use a spellcheck.

I'm not talking about spelling, though. Spellcheckers are useless if your grammar is wrong.

Case in point: all the words in the following poem have been checked by a spellchecking software. They all passed. They are all real words, and they're all spelt correctly.

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

I think they have to be stupid so the readership can understand them

I know, I know. I shouldn't read tabloids if I'm looking for well-written articles. But I can't stand wading though broadsheets.

If I find the careless, slapdash tabloid style annoying, I find the dry, factual approach of the broadsheets even worse. They just make me yawn.

Maybe I should write my own version of the news!

The reason my name on here is Mummy_of_Peanut and not Peanut's_Mummy is because my apostrophe wouldn't be accepted. I couldn't live with being called Peanuts_Mummy. It just wouldn't be right.

I've seen countless newspaper mistakes - local is much worse than national!