Here is yet another post from me highlighting an error in a news article. I don't know why, but errors in reputed newspapers or news websites somehow bother me to a point that it leads to a very rare action of me writing a blog post. However, this one is worth mentioning for three reasons -- firstly because they made an error in both, the hyperlink to the news article as well as the headline on the actual article; secondly because the errors are so blatant that a simple word processing software could have caught them and thirdly because these grammatical errors in an English language article were found on none other than the BBC's website.
Today is 23rd April 2012. I happened to be reading news related to India on BBC's website when I came across a line item which read "Student body to arrive in India soon". For the record, I did find the "Right to Pee" article amusing as well but this one was more troubling.
Upon first reading this, I thought there was some kind of international student body which was going to establish its presence in India in the near future. Since I wasn't aware of any such student organization at an international level, out of curiosity, I clicked on the hyperlink and it opened up the webpage for the news article, the headline of which read : "India student body to arrive soon".
For some reason, that made me livid. Not only did I feel misled by the line on the previous page which spoke about some student body, but the link led to a news article with another blatant grammatical error. I have become used to such errors on Indian news websites which are always in a hurry to report news without even verifying their validity, let alone grammar in their posts. However, the BBC is a renowned agency, which in addition to being British also takes extra efforts to plant quotation marks all over the news article for neutrality. When it makes obvious errors such as the ones above, it seems bothersome. Perhaps they would do better to re-assign some of their "quotation mark specialists" towards proof reading the news articles or maybe start using word processing tools which are adept at grammatical analysis. In fact, as I type this post, blogger.com is doing the same with this piece. :)
Today is 23rd April 2012. I happened to be reading news related to India on BBC's website when I came across a line item which read "Student body to arrive in India soon". For the record, I did find the "Right to Pee" article amusing as well but this one was more troubling.
Upon first reading this, I thought there was some kind of international student body which was going to establish its presence in India in the near future. Since I wasn't aware of any such student organization at an international level, out of curiosity, I clicked on the hyperlink and it opened up the webpage for the news article, the headline of which read : "India student body to arrive soon".
For some reason, that made me livid. Not only did I feel misled by the line on the previous page which spoke about some student body, but the link led to a news article with another blatant grammatical error. I have become used to such errors on Indian news websites which are always in a hurry to report news without even verifying their validity, let alone grammar in their posts. However, the BBC is a renowned agency, which in addition to being British also takes extra efforts to plant quotation marks all over the news article for neutrality. When it makes obvious errors such as the ones above, it seems bothersome. Perhaps they would do better to re-assign some of their "quotation mark specialists" towards proof reading the news articles or maybe start using word processing tools which are adept at grammatical analysis. In fact, as I type this post, blogger.com is doing the same with this piece. :)
2 comments:
Haven't you seen news articles titled "Untitled" in the most read page :)
Haah!
I too thought, by student body they meant some Kappa Beta Gamma thing :P
WSJ too man - i get the hard copy and the editorials are riddled with errors. But it is funny to see the mistakes that CNNs India correspondents make when brought in for chat :D
Good blog
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