google.com, pub-0038581670763948, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 My Typo Humour: City College

Monday 11 February 2013

City College

Come on, Peterborough. Get a grip.

When you read this advert for City College (or Sh-tty College as it's known by some of the locals), you'll understand what Jon C is up against in his increasingly frustrating attempts to uphold standards in that otherwise very fine City.

The advert's sole purpose appears to be to showcase some of the worst examples of those English skills which it is offering to teach.


First, in the heading, why all the capitals? Oh, apart from the second 'to'.

And there's only one college so it should read 'College Offers' and not 'College Offer'.

So, in just one heading we are presented with errors in punctuation, grammar and consistency.

Let's carry on.

Oh, here we go again. Why the capitalisation? Apart from 'City' which earns only a capital initial letter.

And, unless those jobseekers are all taking part in the same job hunt, 'their job hunt' should be 'their job hunts'.

Again, there's only one College so City College has many years experience, not 'have' many years experience.

And, because there are many years and not just one year, there's a misplaced apostrophe. It should read 'many years' experience' and not 'many year's experience'.

Also, there should be a couple of commas in that sentence. One after Peterborough and the other after Street.

There you go, Jackie. You say 'The College has launched...' Despite the fact that you probably wrote the rest of the advert, your quote recognises, at last, that there is only one College. Well done.

Oops, I spoke too soon. I assume there is more than one employer in Peterborough. If that's the case then there's another misplaced apostrophe. It should read 'local employers' needs' and not 'local employer's needs'.

And there's no such word as 'likeminded'. It should be like-minded.

Then we have more inconsistency with some of the programme titles earning capital initial letters while others don't, followed by the Business Administration Course suddenly being promoted to capital initial status.

The quote from the student is clumsy but it might actually be a genuine quote so I'll not dwell on it.

Finally we get back to words provided, presumably, by the College. You can tell because the first sentence doesn't make sense. Instead of a full stop after 'available', there should be a comma and Phone should not have a capital initial letter. You couldn't possibly email www.citycollegepeterborough.co.uk because it's a web address and not an email address. You might visit it though.

Or, as the advert says, you could visit the College in person.

If you do, perhaps you'd like to help the members of staff with their English rather than vice versa.

Oh, and ask them if they're interested in running a course in Proofreading.

2 comments:

  1. Clearly whoever did write that shite should be among the ranks of the newly unemployed...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha. If they've any sense, they won't go to City College to gain the skills they so desperately need.

      Delete

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