Independent: Pratchett blooper

Bit of a blooper today in an Independent story on novelist Terry Pratchett. Here's the passage in question – the italics are The Independent's own.

[Pratchett] has written a number of specifically children's books, including Truckers in 1989, which became the first of its kind to appear in British adult fiction bestseller lists.

Two others, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents won the prestigious Carnegie medal for children's fiction in 2001.

I'm not a particular Pratchett fan (unlike Apus) so hadn't heard of the books in question – but winning the Carnegie with two books in one year? That, the strange, unitalicised 'his', and the missing comma after 'Rodents' all rang my subbing alarm bells.

You guessed it: Pratchett actually won the Carnegie with one novel, called The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. Someone – probably a sub – compounded the italicising error by adding 'Two others' to the start of the sentence. And not checking on Amazon.

(At the time of writing this post, the same mistake can be seen (minus italics) on the Independent's online version of the Pratchett story.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

wonder if that sub got thrown off base bcs the copy was filed w/ a lower-case "h" on "his"?

But he should have looked it up. Do subs at a place like that have time, etc., to run a quick search? They should, but I bet it's easy to skip it now and then.

(though, two books in one year should have set off alarm bells)