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A panel headlined Other classic New York urban myths (25 August, page 8, G2) included an entry on the "money train" reportedly used to transport the subway system's cash and takings. This was not a mythical train but a real one. Link
An interviewee at St Paul's boys' school in London, who gave his name as Joe Bibby, was reported in a newspaper story and a guardian.co.uk video as saying he'd received five A* grades in this year's A-level exams. St Paul's has informed the Guardian that this person was a prankster, not a pupil (The grade gap: A*s all round at Osborne's old school, just one at Grimsby academy, 20 August, page 10). Link
A woman accused of the attempted murder of Gabriela Spanic, an actor in Mexico, is said to have been slowly poisoning her and her family by adding tiny amounts of ammonium sulphate to their food. The name of the chemical was incorrectly translated from the Mexican police report that actually refers to ammonium sulfide, which is not used in fertilisers, unlike ammonium sulphate, which is, and was referred to in the story. An accompanying photograph was not that of Ms Spanic but of Gabriela Vergara, a fellow actor (Aide accused of poisoning TV star, 25 August, page 19). Link
Our attempt to expose the decline of opportunities to learn a foreign language in Britain was marred by errors in a foreign language, as well as one in English. Willy Brandt, the former West German chancellor, was quoted as having once said: “If I’m selling I’m happy to speak to you in English. But if I’m buying dann mussen sie deutsche sprechen.” This should have been expressed as: “If I am selling to you, I speak your language. If I am buying, dann mussen Sie Deutsch sprechen.” A little further on the piece notes that languages are rarely defended as worth studying for their own sake, for example, to help “understand the words to a Schubert lieder”. The singular of Lieder is Lied. We are truly sorry, or Es tut uns sehr Leid (Wer will heute noch Sprachen lernen – who still wants to learn languages?, 25 August, page 10, G2). Link
The Niger delta supplies 8.2%, not 40%, of the crude oil imported by the US, as we stated in a story yesterday (Niger delta spills released twice as much oil as Deepwater. But it’s not Shell’s fault, UN says, 23 August, page 17). Link
Peaches and plums are often used metaphorically to connote happiness and good fortune, a recipe said, giving a cricketing example: “That was an absolute peach of a ball, got him plum LBW.” The fruity pun didn’t work in this case, because the word needed is plumb (Perfect plumming, 7 August, page 44, Weekend).
An editing error resulted in the text and headline of a piece – about the rise of online films, documentaries and video logs – wrongly describing a forthcoming VBS.TV film, Afghanistan in the UK, as a spoof. Many of the online films discussed in the piece were also at odds with the headline description of them as “citizen films”, because they emanate from commercial companies (Sloths, sharks or spoofs: slew of videos sates new appetite for citizen films, 18 August, page 13). Link
A news agency brief said that jellyfish “attacked” three coastal areas. A reader observes: “Jellyfish don’t attack, they get moved by sea currents” (Hundreds stung by jellyfish off Costa Blanca, 12 August, page 14). Link
A story reported on the outcome of a lawsuit lodged in Oslo against Asne Seierstad, author of The Bookseller of Kabul, by a member of the Afghan family portrayed in the book. The story said Seierstad was found guilty of defamation, but that was not so: the finding was invasion of privacy. The piece also said she was found guilty of “negligent journalistic practices”. To clarify: the judge did cite negligence, but there was no guilty finding on a charge of negligence, as our phrasing might have implied. Contrary to the piece, legal fees were not awarded against Asne Seierstad and her publisher Cappelen Damm; the judge is to rule on fees later. The article also said the book’s revelations of personal details caused several members of the Afghan family to move to Pakistan and Canada. We should have made clear this was an allegation made by the plaintiff’s side in a case document. Equally, the heading – Brought to book: Kabul author guilty of ‘betraying’ a nation – referred to an accusation by a family member, not a comment by the court (28 July, page 11). Link
A feature headlined Galley Slaves appeared in Weekend on 24 July, pages 22-27, comprising a collection of portrait photos of airline cabin staff and an individual account of what it’s like to do this type of work. We would like to clarify that the article was the account of one cabin member who was not among those featured in the photo spread. It was in no way intended to reflect the personal experience of the crew members whose pictures appeared in the feature. Link
In an article about Sky TV buying rights to programmes by the US cable television broadcaster HBO we said that the actor David Morrissey had approached Sky and the BBC with an idea for a dramatisation based on novels featuring Detective Inspector Tom Thorne – but ended up accepting Sky’s offer “for fear that the BBC bureaucracy would stifle his vision”. A representative for Mr Morrissey has told us that the latter never approached the BBC and has not expressed concern that it would stifle a vision he might have (Is it curtains for free TV drama? 2 August, page 1, Media). Link
An article about maths busking said that finding a solution to turning a waistcoat inside out while wearing handcuffs involved topography. It is more likely to involve the mathematics of topology, unless, as a reader noted, we meant that in the topography of London passersby might rush to one’s aid and assist in the struggle (Just a fraction mad, 13 July, page 3, Education). Link
A report about the former media mogul Conrad Black said his first newspaper title was the Sherbrooke Record, “a small Canadian weekly”. The Record is published five days a week and has never been a weekly. Neither was it Black’s first newspaper. He had already acquired the Eastern Townships Advertiser, a community newspaper in Quebec (US court frees Conrad Black on bail, 20 July, page 20).
Cardinal Richelieu was Louis XIII’s chief minister, but Marie Antoinette was not the wife of that king, as we suggested in an article referring to a photograph of Conrad Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel, wearing fancy dress. Marie Antoinette was the wife of Louis XVI (Do I look rich in this?, 21 July, page 9, G2). Link
In a feature about tattoos we said that “Winston Churchill’s mother, Clementine, had a discreet snake on her wrist”. Clementine was Churchill’s wife. His tattooed mother was Jennie (No pain . . ., 20 July, page 6, G2). Link
In a report about Jonathan Ross’s final chat show on BBC1, we quoted his guest Jackie Chan as saying: “I don’t want to be an actor who can fight. I want to be a fighter who can act.” In fact, he said the opposite: “I want to be an actor who can fight. I don’t want to be a fighter who can act.” (Final night: Emotional Ross stops talking after a decade of chat, 17 July, page 5, later editions.) Link
Pavan Sukhdev, head of a UN investigation into how to stop the destruction of the natural world, should not have been described in an article as a former adviser to the Indian government. He has never held that role. He was wrongly quoted as saying: “The purpose of a corporation is to be selfish.” His actual words were: “The purpose of a corporation is its own self-interest.” (Soulless firms a cancer on environment – UN, 12 July, page 5.) Link
An obituary suggested the physicist Brian (Lord) Flowers had never returned to Manchester University after a secondment elsewhere in 1967. In fact he was the university’s chancellor from 1994 to 2001 (30 June, page 37). Link
When an interview piece said that 15 years from now reading an article in a printed copy of the Guardian would look “as arcane as a Western Union telegram does today”, what it meant was, as archaic (‘If there’s a screen to worry about in your house, it’s not the one with the mouse attached’, 5 July, page 7, G2). Link
A dropped digit meant we seemed to be saying that about 60 demonstrators were arrested during the G20 meeting in Toronto – instead of about 600, as the local police said at the time of writing (Cameron plans to downgrade G8 summit, 29 June, page 8). Link
Referring to John Prescott’s drive to get more new homes built, a comment piece meant to say that Labour’s then deputy prime minister had recognised that, when it comes to brownfield sites, “there is not a finite stock” – because brownfield stock is always being replenished if planning is good. An editing change left this saying he recognised “there is a finite stock” (‘Garden grabbing’ eases the pressure on greenfield sites, 18 June, page 37). Link
Australia’s new leader, Julia Gillard, was described in a leader comment as “the first prime minister anywhere to have been born in Wales since (David) Lloyd George”. A reader notes: “He was born in Manchester, as was the Guardian” (Rudderless, 25 June, page 36). Link
We suggested that Warren Buffett went into property aged seven when we said he bought his present-day Omaha house in 1938. That was meant to be 1958 (Pass notes No 2,794, 10 June, page 3, G2). Link
An editing change resulted in a comment piece mistakenly describing Iran’s opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq organisation as “a guerrilla Sunni-Marxist movement”. Being aware that the group is largely Shia, the writer of the article had made no reference to Sunni Islam or to Marxism, describing Mujahedin-e Khalq supporters – in the context of various anti-government protesters jailed in 1980s Iran – simply as backing “a guerrilla movement with a different version of Islam” (Impunity’s yield in Iran, 8 June, page 28). Link
Describing an upcoming documentary programme of soldiers’ recollections of the second world war, a summary said: “In June 1940 a third of a million British and American soldiers were rescued at Dunkirk.” The troops rescued from the Dunkirk area were mainly British, French, Belgian, Canadian, Polish and Dutch. Not until December 1941 did the US enter the war (Pick of the day, 22 May, page 95, the Guide). Link
Readers challenged a book extract that seemed to suggest that Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb. To clarify, the breakthrough that was made and publicly demonstrated about a year before Edison’s – by Joseph Swan of Newcastle, in early 1879 – was acknowledged by the book, but this element had been cut for space (Let there be light, 17 May, page 6, G2). In extract two (First flush, 18 May, page 10, G2) readers challenged the description of garderobe as “a word now extinct”, noting that it is alive and well in Dutch and French. To clarify, the intention was to say it was extinct in English usage as a word for privy. Link
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