Tuesday, November 05, 2013

language quiz

I saw this quote:

We seem to have developed a taste for coffee here at UlsanOnline and have a plenitude of reviews of them. The Penis cafe, however, is quite a bit different than the others we’ve reviewed.

Did you find the error? No? Need a hint? See here.

Oh, and did you find the other error?

(Could there conceivably be a third error? Just asking.)


_

6 comments:

SJHoneywell said...

There's a number error between "coffee" and "them."

Second, The Penis cafe is not a coffee, but presumably a coffee shop. It should also be called "The Penis Cafe," since the last word is still a part of its formal name.

I don't love the punctuation around "however."

Charles said...

Well, there's also the fact that "cafe" should be capitalized, if we're going to pick nits.

Kevin Kim said...

Errors I caught:

1. "reviews of them": the "them" is an error of ambiguous reference. Based on what follows in the article, "them" might refer to "cafes." If the sentence is read alone, abstracted from context, "them" might refer to "varieties of coffee."

2. Mechanics: the "c" in "Penis cafe" should be capitalized.

3. The phrase "different than" should be "different from" (US style) or "different to" (UK style). "Different than" is used only before a clause: "Results were different than I expected."

Malcolm Pollack said...

Fourth error: "others we've reviewed" would naturally be understood to refer to coffees, not coffee-shops.

Fifth error: The Cafe Penis itself. Good Lord.

Malcolm Pollack said...

SJH also spotted my #4, of course.



Kevin Kim said...

One of my coworkers, a blog reader, wrote in a few days ago with these remarks:

1. Second sentence: than should be "from"
2. First sentence: Agreement -- them should technically be "it" (coffee). Basically, it's a preposition without an initially specified object/subject.
3. The "c" in Penis cafe should be capitalized as it is a name.
4. "seem to" is both a cliche and unnecessary and should be removed. They have a "plenitude" of reviews, so why the hedging?
5. "plenitude" is pretentious, abundance would be better.
6. "here at UlsanOnline" should be moved to just before the "we," otherwise it seems they developed the taste for coffee literally on their site, which is physically impossible, and since they mean cafes it doesn't refer to drinking coffee at their offices, if they have them, either.

There are probably more mistakes but I can't be fucked to spot any more since the writing is so crap...


My coworker's #6 is a misplaced modifier. I kicked myself for not having caught that one.