I blame the black berets
PAUL Lewis and The Guardian are leading the charge with the investigation into how the supa-dupa message spreading Blackberry is being used by young rioters to organise themselves. That’s Blackberries, not Black Berets. The investigation provides the perfect time, for a moment of light relief, to revisit the paper’s best entry in its corrections and clarifications from last year:
• An interview with the Irish singer Gavin Friday included this quote: “And those hip-hop guys, they all have about 10 managers and 10 assistants, all with the black berets.” On reflection, the writer realised that he had misheard and what he should have written was: “And those hip-hop guys, they all have about 10 managers and 10 assistants, all with the BlackBerrys.” (‘You can’t be what you were’, 26 March, page 6, Film&Music.)
Reminds me of the very best Guardian correction I’ve seen – caused by them confusing jaguars (land-bound, four legs, one tail) with Jaguars (in the air, two wings, also one tail).