"Kill duck before cooking"

January 21, 2002 3:58 PM

"Kill duck before cooking" and other chortle-worthy corrections from The New York Times. If newspapers were smart, they'd recognize that their corrections columns are a potential gold mine in terms of entertainment value, and promote them accordingly. But, alas, newspapers are not smart. (NY Times link, naturally, so the usual warnings apply.)
posted by nathanstack (4 comments total)

A caption in Business Day with an article about the National Bank of Kuwait mistranslated the Arabic script of the bank symbol. It says, "National Bank of Kuwait" [not "There is no god but Allah].

Great article - concentrated hilarity!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:16 PM on January 21, 2002

The Graunidan's Corrections and clarifications column is always good for a laugh. I think they published a collection of the best a few years ago as well. Some classics in this article...
posted by laukf at 4:24 PM on January 21, 2002

"— Feb. 14, 1995

A caption misidentified a drag queen shown standing behind Quentin Crisp. The performer was Brandywine, not Lady Bunny"

I imagine the drag queen actually called the paper to complain about being misidentified. I would love to have been privy to that phone call.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:45 PM on January 21, 2002

Great. Hype the corrections page into a major attraction and create an incentive for newspapers to be even less accurate.
posted by straight at 6:00 AM on January 22, 2002