Things I do better than Vladimir Putin ...

[blamebrampton]

Sing, and swim.

Seriously, that was a rubbish butterfly stroke. It's possible I would be a better leader of Russia, too, but since we have no basis for comparison, and I know only four words of Russian, he can have that one.

And while I am mocking people meanly, I found this gem in US Better Homes and Gardens, September 2008 edition:
What is a simmer?
"Simmer" is a just-for-fun term that has sprung up in the food world to mean cooking in a bold-flavored sauce. Think of it as braising with a twist. It's too new to be in dictionaries, but you'll see it used on restaurant menus ...

I had to actually hunt out one of my American dictionaries to check that this is as stupid as I thought it was. It listed simmer, gave its classic definitions (one of which covers the use the BH&G writer was aiming at) and noted the word comes from the mid 17th century. I am tempted to write to the editorial team to check that someone was laughed at for letting this through, but live in fear that no one was. Do not take your facts from mass market media, my friends! It is often written by gibbons!

Comments

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Simmer. "Just for fun". Oh dear.

Though I remember a poor, benighted creature (also an American, I believe) assuring her unfortunate querent that "fruitwood" as a furniture-related term is merely a term for a colour of dye, not a reference to the real wood of real trees bearing human-edible fruit, like cherry or pear or apple (or indeed lychee, longan or mango). Then there was the recent edition of Vogue Patterns that solemnly assured the reader that Cluny lace is named after a museum in Paris...
and the article on Wallis Simpson that remarked that her affair with the King aroused the wrath of Queen Elizabeth I.

One weeps for fact-checkers and their lack of employment in the magazine industry.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I once had a journo snarl at me because I changed her copy, she had written that Ancient Egyptians decorated their breasts with molten gold. I removed the word molten and she was furious. I let her moan for a minute, before pointing out that gold melts at over 1000 degrees C.

'Oh,' she said. 'Well, it was on the internet.'

PS Thank you for the hilarious other examples!

[chantefable.livejournal.com]

'Well, it was on the internet.'

Obviously.

[chantefable.livejournal.com]

and the article on Wallis Simpson that remarked that her affair with the King aroused the wrath of Queen Elizabeth I.

This is priceless. And terrifying. Imagine Queen Elizabeth I striking back in times of royal scandal, part zombie, part King Arthur.

Some readers could be seriously traumatised by such articles!