Arguments and facts of errors in articles. Lexical errors

Problems of speech culture and literary editing.

Types of errors recorded in subsequent issues of St. Petersburg newspapers:

READING LESSONS

Last time we looked in detail at examples from St. Petersburg newspapers, in which there was one mistake - tautology. It would seem not very serious, because this defect of presentation does not deform the content of the statement. However, a tautology can affect the reader’s attitude towards both the journalist and the publication on whose pages the material with speech errors is placed. The fact is that some errors can only be caught by people who have a perfect command of the norms of cultural speech, but tautology catches the eye of almost everyone. Let's compare two sentences:

(1) And for the last, third time, I, reluctantly already understanding the futility of appeals to this smiling, friendly OFFICIAL, conveyed to Romankov’s reception an appeal from his former colleague Gennady Kravchenko with an appeal to express his attitude regarding BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS regarding editor-in-chief of the opposition newspaper ("New Petersburg").

(2) The globalization of economics and politics is somewhat similar to the construction financial pyramids whose instability is in the habit of increase simultaneously with your size ("Business Petersburg").

In the first fragment, closely related words used lead to a tautology and only affect the quality of speech. They do not transform the content of the statement. An easily felt tautology is superimposed by another - hidden - due to the use of the word regarding. The meaning of this adverb includes the meaning conveyed by the noun preposition regarding. After all regarding means regarding something, someone, regarding something, anyone. The author carefully thinks over even the graphic solution of the phrase, but does not care about looking like a literate person.

In the second example the error is not so obvious. This difficult-to-understand sentence can even be simply skipped during a quick reading. Of course, the conveyed meaning will also be lost. But the reader, accustomed to getting to the point, will try to understand it. To do this, he will look for a connection between words and the “picture of the world” that they model. What will he find? You can use the word instability in the context of a structure such as financial pyramid(a structure that attracts investors with the fast turnover and high liquidity of shares and uses the incoming funds for its own personal purposes until the moment of self-liquidation)? No, because pyramid- a structure with a stable foundation. If, under the influence of any factors, the base is destroyed and leads to instability pyramids, this must be expressed in the text. Let's look further at the choice of words and the connection of parts in a complex sentence: whose instability increases simultaneously with its size. Reconstructing the reality behind words is hindered by the connection between words instability and her dimensions. Incorrectly used reflexive possessive pronoun mine further disrupts the visual side of the presentation. According to the norms of the Russian language, this pronoun must indicate that the name belongs to the person/thing named by the subject. In this sentence the subject instability. Therefore, the reader will combine the word instability with the word dimensions. While in meaning we should be talking about the size of another noun - pyramid. The author "forces" the reader to "see" how the size of instability increases, not pyramids. The statement needs correction.

• After editing: ...whose instability becomes increasingly apparent as the size of the structure increases.

When a tautology arises in spontaneous oral speech, this can be understood. The speaker did not have time to process the utterance. Here are the host’s remarks from the latest episodes of the “Freedom of Speech” program:

I have to interrupt you because our connection is interrupted.
In the first part of the program we will focus, firstly, on...

In a written text, such a simple defect can be easily eliminated. You just need to train yourself to reread what you read. And this is a very important stage in working on your own style. Let's look at a sentence from a St. Petersburg newspaper:

(3) His supporters from Memorial and with famous with their a priori disrespectful attitude towards dissident deputies, Ruslan Linkov’s website “Kandidat.ru” calls Mr. Romankov and “ famous dissident”, and “human rights activist”, and “member of the Popular Front” (“New Petersburg”).

The tautology in it is immediately visible and easily overcome.

• After editing: ... well known And famous.

It is worth dwelling on this fragment because there is another journalistic error in it. I think it appeared in the press under the influence of the fashion for foreign words. Knowing a “foreign” word and owning it are different stages of mastering a borrowed lexical unit. What's happened a priori? As a philosophical term, the word means " regardless of experience, before experience". In a figurative meaning it is synonymous with the expressions " without checking, without establishing anything in advance, in advance". They usually say a priori statement, i.e. independent of experience, preceding it. In this text, the use of this word is inaccurate.

Here is another example where the inaccurate meaning of a foreign word distorts the meaning of the statement:

(4) The tax police accuse Plastprom of 2.5 million rubles of underpayment (Business Petersburg).

Journalist due to ignorance of the word incriminate violated semantic compatibility. Incriminate- to impute, to accuse someone of something. The writer connected the words grammatically and syntactically incriminate And 2.5 million. The reader receives the phrase incriminate 2.5 million rubles. But money cannot be incriminated.

• After editing: ...Plastprom is accused of underpayment in the amount of 2.5 million rubles.

ALOGISM

One of the laws of logic - the law of contradiction - sounds like this: two statements cannot be true at the same time, one of which asserts something about the subject of our thoughts, and the other denies the same thing at the same moment. Schematically, these contradictory statements can be represented as follows: A is B and A is not B. Usually such statements lead to the fact that the reader cannot combine two images or connect into a whole two thoughts expressed in the text. Here the author writes:

He was short, broad-shouldered, With protruding belly, round, almost completely bald head.

Because of its use next to the adverb almost (bald) in the meaning " so that a little is missing from something" words at all in the meaning " completely, completely"a logical contradiction arises that violates the pictorial side of the text. It is impossible to be simultaneously almost bald And completely bald.

(5) So we decided that it would not be a bad idea to refresh our memory, at least slightly, of some of the problems of our security. Moreover, in recent years the relevance of this topic has only grown (“Komsomolskaya Pravda in St. Petersburg”).

The first sentence suggests that some security issues have faded into the background if the author calls for them to be refreshed, i.e. have become irrelevant. The second sentence states that today the relevance of this topic has increased.

(6) In the summer, everyone forgot about Yannick - he disappeared and fed on forest gifts: flowers, berries, mushrooms - he sold all this for cheap, enough for vodka, then he went into the forest again... ("Nevskoe Vremya").

Here a logical contradiction arises between two statements: Janik fed on forest gifts And Janik sold forest gifts. Probably the reason for the illogicality is the careless construction of the phrase. Let's try to "unwind" the textual intrigue: In the summer, everyone forgot about Yannick, because he disappeared into the forest, where he picked flowers, berries, and mushrooms. Then he sold it all and bought vodka with the proceeds. There was only enough for her. The accuracy of the expression of thoughts is also hampered by careless punctuation - placing a dash instead of a colon between parts of a complex non-union sentence. After all, the second sentence indicates the reason for what is said in the first.

(7) Moreover, figuratively speaking, although he knows how to cure his left hand, the doctor does not know what to do with his right (“New Petersburg”).

After the words figuratively speaking there must be a figurative statement: metaphor, metonymy, epithet, etc. But the author directly (not figuratively!) expresses his thoughts: the doctor is treating, the doctor does not know what to do... The journalist should use at least an expressive turn of phrase here doctor racks his brains over what to do with the right, the contradiction would not arise.

But in the following fragment this law is violated twice: a figurative contradiction is strung onto a formal-logical contradiction and prevents the perception of a commentary on the event:

(8) Berezovsky, while proving the brilliant prospects of his opposition movement, is still right about one thing. In Russia there is no clearly structured party system; confusion and vacillation reign in the political field (“St. Petersburg Rush Hour”).

Logical contradiction: right about one thing. One- This two argument: 1) lack of a structured party system; 2) confusion and vacillation in the political field. The figurative contradiction is contained in the metaphor: confusion and vacillation reign. Two paintings do not merge into a whole: in a figurative sense reign - dominate, prevail, reign supreme; vacillation - unstable position, hesitation, inconstancy. Some components of the word meaning confusion also weaken the integrity of the image: lack of unity, consistency.

In one of the articles, the German philosopher M. Heidegger writes that "language is the house of being". When correcting your text, it is important to check not only the correct spelling of words and punctuation marks, but also to monitor the connections between the facts of the language and the facts of reality. Reliance on the laws of logic - the laws of correct thinking - helps to correct these connections.

Svetlana Smetanina, member of the St. Petersburg Union of Journalists, Doctor of Philology, St. Petersburg State University, Faculty of Journalism

The main task of an advertiser is to attract the attention of buyers to a product or service, and most often he does this through all sorts of mistakes. We assume that accidental errors are very rarely made in advertising, and in fact they are created intentionally.

It should be admitted that intentional mistakes do attract the attention of literate people, but where is the confidence that they will not lead to massive diseases of the language and will not affect the speech pattern of society? After analyzing the advertising, we tracked that the texts of the advertisements contained: a) logical contradictions; b) grammatical errors; c) lexical, stylistic defects.

It has been established that gross spelling, lexical, factual, punctuation, logical and speech errors are made in advertising. Nowadays advertising is everywhere: in newspapers, magazines, on television screens, as well as on houses, bus stops, billboards, and shops. It is spreading very quickly, and now advertisers pay virtually no attention to the correct writing or pronunciation of ad texts.

There is an error in the advertisement on the pole: “A Chinese-made hair clipper is for sale.” (Where can I get Chinese-made hair?) In an advertisement for “Squirrel” sunflower seeds on Orenburg TV, at the end of the video the slogan appears: “For friends, we recommend the best.” An example of a logical fallacy will be in the following advertisement: the window is the face of your home! If a window is a face, then how many faces does the house have? Examples of spelling errors in advertising are: “knorr – tasty and skorr”, “you have to live by DRINKING” and lexical inconsistencies: “kills on the spot” and “delicious joys every day” in one sentence about noodles. An example of lexical errors is: real Italian tiles made in Russia (a combination of the incongruous words “real Italian” and “from Russia”)

Television reaches the largest audience of listeners. Slides, films and videos are used for advertising on television. Television advertising has some disadvantages: - short duration and episodic nature; - high cost, therefore, brevity in the presentation of the range and qualities of products; - speech and factual errors. There are often verbal and factual errors in commercials. For example, Leonid Kuravlev, advertising a zirconium bracelet, assures that he “now has no pressure.” According to doctors, if a person does not have any blood pressure, then he is dead. How does Leonid Kuravlev assure that he has no pressure?

There was a lexical error in the advertisement for the Tefal electric kettle. At the end of the video clip, the slogan appears: “Tefal thinks for you” (how can technology think?) When advertising clothes, the following phrase was used: “The language of shopping is clear to everyone” (a combination of incompatible words “language” and “shopping”) A mistake was made in advertising of a medicinal product. “Not just zilch, but Stopangin,” is an unjustified use of an interjection.

There is a slogan in beer advertising: “Bochkarev” is the right beer. In the modern Russian language, according to the literary norm, the adjective “correct” has the meaning: “1. Correct pronunciation Correct change of seasons. 3. True, corresponding to reality, as it should be... Correct policy...” Thus, this the adjective is combined only with inanimate, abstract nouns (denoting abstract concepts). The word “beer” is an inanimate noun, but it denotes a specific concept. This means that it cannot be combined with the adjective “correct” in literary language. This is a gross lexical error.

In the newspaper "Arguments and Facts" in one issue, in an advertisement on the first page, two advertisements were placed in which the plural of the word tractor in one case is used as "tractors", in the other - "tractors". This is a spelling error. In the advertisement there is an error in the name of the newspaper “Va-Bank”. The obsolete spelling was abolished in 1918, so the word is misspelled.

This advertisement implied the word “Arctic fox” - a polar fox with valuable fur, from which you can make a wonderful warm winter coat. An advertisement for a coat sale made a logical mistake in the spelling of the word "scribe." In the “Dictionary of the Russian Language” by S. I. Ozhegov, the word “scribe” means copyist, scribe.

An error was found in an advertisement for a Moscow concert on one of the billboards in Moscow. A forum site was created on the Internet to discuss this error and “advertising blunders” in general. From the written discussion it appears that many people are concerned about the rapid spread of errors. “What will happen next if the government completely stops monitoring this???” – writes one girl. A punctuation error was found on a billboard in 2005. It was noticed, but has not yet been corrected by the authorities.

The information was found using the Internet on the website as well as using search engines: Yandex, Rambler, Google, Yahoo! “Aport!” Also, photographs of errors were found on billboards in the city, from magazines, and newspapers. Worked on the project: I. R. Boyur, A. S Akhankov.

State Institute of Russian Language named after. A.S. Pushkin, commissioned by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, compiled the first literacy rating of printed publications, TV channels and radio stations in the country. As the ministry told Izvestia, the goal of the project is “to build a rating of the correct use of the Russian language among the most popular media.” In total, data from 17 print publications, three news agencies, five television channels, and seven radio stations were analyzed.

Based on the results of the study, the publications were assigned literacy levels - there were four groups (see illustration). Lenta.ru and Izvestia, as experts decided, “have every chance of becoming excellent” (one error accounts for about three pages of text).

Most media received a “solid four” - one error per two pages (“Interfax”, “Vedomosti”, “Arguments of the Week”, RIA, “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”, “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”, RBC, “Expert”, “Dengi”, “ Kommersant", "Newspaper", "Profile").

The “C” marks (one error per page) were “Moskovsky Komsomolets”, “Ogonyok”, TASS, “Komsomolskaya Pravda”.

As experts noted, “Arguments and Facts” faces “the risk of staying for a second year” - the publication has an average of two errors per page.

Experts calculated the total percentage of errors in the published text. For Lenta this figure is 0.28%, for Izvestia - 0.42%, and for Interfax 0.52%. In the tail are “Arguments and Facts” (1.99%), “Komsomolskaya Pravda” (1.36%), TASS (1.32%). The most common shortcomings are coordination errors in sentences, when the endings of agreed members of a sentence are used incorrectly or prepositions are used incorrectly, as well as other spelling errors.

To find out all this, the Russian Language Institute, as stated in the study, analyzed the monthly volume of printed text from 20 print and online media (15,654 articles, 216,047 sentences), as well as television and radio programs from 12 media (120 hours of broadcast / more than 200 news and journalistic programs).

In the TV and radio ratings, the most literate were Radio Russia (two errors per hour), Rossiya-1 (three errors per hour), Channel 5 and Russian News Service (four errors per hour). The most common mistakes are NTV (13 errors per hour), Kommersant FM and Channel One (11 errors per hour), TVC, Mayak and Serebryany Dozhd (10 errors per hour).

According to him, there is no one to give the “Golden Tipun” award, which he himself proposed to revive in October 2014.

Yes, there are several publications that do not have very good results, but this is definitely not “Golden Tipun,” he said. - The situation is not so depressing.

He noted that it is more difficult for television channels and radio stations to avoid speech errors.

Printed publications are responsible only for their own shortcomings. And TV channels also count those mistakes that are made not by employees, but by newsmakers: incorrect wording cannot be cut out of the air, says Volin.

“I don’t doubt for a second that the chief editors of those media outlets that are at the bottom of the list will give their employees a hard time,” he said.

Let us recall that officials of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications announced their intention to create a rating of the most literate media and newsmakers in October last year.

We believe that a powerful means of educational influence can be the rating and anti-rating of the media and newsmakers on the use of the Russian language, that is, we want to make a list of “well done” and a list of “scoundrels” who distort and distort the Russian language, Volin said then.

Lexical errors are associated with ignorance of the meanings of words and set expressions and, due to this ignorance, their incorrect use in speech. Let's give a few examples.

A very persistent mistake turned out to be the use of the word “back” instead of “again”, “again”: “Gabardine came back to us”, “Rizhsky Station should be renamed back...”, “Subsequently Balanchine gave her (the ballerina) this part back.” Journalists often begin a sentence with the words “in this regard” (“In this regard, I would like to recall recent events”). Most often, this phrase is used when the text does not indicate any connection between the previous and the subsequent. Correct: “In this regard...”. Thanks to this combination of words, a connection is established between what has already been said and what will be discussed in the future.

A common mistake is to use the words “signature” instead of “signature” and “number” instead of “date”. (Correspondent: “This is the letter we received, and at the end there is a painting and a number.”) Painting is painting on walls, ceilings and on household items (Khokhloma, Gorodets painting). Not to be confused with the word "receipt", for example, a receipt for receiving money. A signature is a handwritten name under a document, confirming the authorship of the signatory or his agreement with what is stated. As for the words “date” and “date”, they are also not synonyms, therefore, interchangeability in the text is not justified. The concept of “date” (a mark indicating time) includes a day, a month, and a year, and a number is only the day of a calendar month. (For example: “The film will premiere on the sixteenth”). When drawing up a document, we record exactly the date, that is, the day, month and year of its execution.

Lexico-stylistic errors also include ignorance of the peculiarities of lexical combinability of words in the Russian language. For example: “The standard of living of the people is deteriorating” (correct: “The standard of living of the people is decreasing”). The sentence is also incorrectly composed: “In order to improve the crime situation in the city, law enforcement agencies are working in an intensified mode.” "Criminogenic - facilitating the commission of a crime." Correct: “To change the crime situation in the city...” or “To improve the general situation in the city...”.

There are frequent cases of incorrect use of the words “main” and “capital”. Thus, in the sentence “In the film “The Cranes Are Flying,” Tatyana Samoilova played the title role,” the word “capital” was used in the meaning “main,” which is incorrect, since “capital” means “placed in the title, which was not in our example (and not implied). And the actress played the title role in the film “Anna Karenina,” named after the heroine.

Errors of the following kind are typical for television and radio broadcasts: “The fire broke out at a very high altitude”, “The reporter conducted a reporter’s research”, “Those who distinguished themselves in this operation were awarded state awards”, “Speaking about the conversation with Stepashin, the deputy noted...”. This series can be continued for a long time. Phenomena of this order in linguistics are usually called tautology. Undoubtedly, colloquial elements, colloquial inclusions (namely inclusions) have the right to life in journalism. However, journalists often lack a sense of proportion in the use of conversational style means, for example: “Visitors to the museum are entirely employees of the Foreign Ministry, the museum staff did their best for them.”

It should be noted that the conversational tonality in information and analytical programs often gravitates toward a rough, colloquial tone, or is even completely replaced by it. Evidence of this is the frankly rude vocabulary: havat, freebie, goats, screw up, get into your pants, etc.

As for foreign words, the need for some of them is undeniable, but why do we need “confrontation”, “round”, “summit”, “consensus”, “teenager”, “show”, “mimicry”, “brain ring” and hundreds others! The current scale of borrowing is destructive for the Russian literary language.

B) MORPHOLOGICAL ERRORS

Errors of this kind are explained by violations of the rules for the formation of various forms of words. The largest number of speech errors occurs when using a numeral. In the examples given below, the errors are explained precisely by ignorance of the peculiarities of the declension of words of this part of speech.

Let's look at a few examples. “Yesterday there were about four hundred cameras here (in Severomorsk)” (correct: “about four hundred”). “Operations will be carried out with fifty percent of the holding’s shares” (correctly: “with fifty percent”). “More than eight hundred thousand pensioners can now live with dignity” (correctly: “more than eight hundred thousand pensioners”).

Non-declension or incomplete declension of complex and compound numerals is a violation of the literary norm. Journalists rarely use the numeral “one and a half.” Within a day and a half, the city was empty” (correctly: “a day and a half”).

There are also frequent errors in choosing the case form of a compound numeral ending in “two”, “three”, “four” in combination with an animate noun. In such constructions, regardless of the category of animation, the accusative case retains the nominative form, for example: “In total, thirty-two wounded were brought to the hospital this month” (not “thirty-two wounded”).

The following sentence also does not correspond to the literary norm: “Construction of the complex should be completed by two thousand and three” (correct: “... by two thousand and three”), since in a compound ordinal number only the last word is declined).

There are also errors of this kind: “The government promises to pay pensions by the tenth of September” (correct: “...by the tenth of September”).

Errors are still common when using collective numerals. Their use in combination with nouns related to official business vocabulary is not recommended in literary language (especially in information programs). For example: “It is no coincidence that two senators ended up in this region at once” (correct: “...two senators...”).

The numerals “both” (male) and “both” (female) are not always used correctly, for example: “The introduction of another currency (except the ruble) is detrimental for both countries” (correct: “... for both countries”).

A speech error is the formation of masculine nouns in the nominative case in the plural: inspectors (instead of inspectors); handwriting (instead of handwriting); locksmith (instead of locksmith); sniper (instead of snipers); paramedic (instead of paramedic)

Errors occur on the air and when forming the genitive case of plural nouns. The following formations are considered normative: barges - barges (not "barges"); everyday life - everyday life (not “everyday”); melons - melons (not “melons”); shoulders - shoulders (not "shoulders"); towels - towels; sheets - sheet (not “sheet”); twilight - twilight; manger - manger.

Journalists make mistakes when declension of nouns denoting the names of certain nationalities. In particular, there are frequent errors when using genitive plural forms, for example: Bashkirs - Bashkirs (not “Bashkirs”); Buryats - Buryats (not "Buryats"); Turkmen - Turkmens (not "Turkmens"); Yakuts - Yakutov (not "Yakut").

IN FRANCE, TV presenters who mistakenly use an English word instead of its French equivalent are fined. If we were fined for TV mistakes, it’s scary to imagine how rich the “auditors” would be - even better than the Olympic Committee with its lotteries. The “pioneer” of Russian voice-over, Anna Shatilova, told AiF that on average there are up to 50 speech errors per news broadcast. Although the State Duma is discussing the need to “punish” TV presenters for mistakes on air, it is unlikely that the matter will end with the adoption of a special law. In the meantime, our children, following their TV idols, say: “I was in Kemerovo” instead of: “I was in Kemerovo” - well, by analogy with the already textbook mistake: “And now about the latest events in Vidyayevo”!

How to thin out a flurry of telebloopers? A TV maniac once sent out to “serious authorities” a 52-page list of 1,374 mistakes (!) made on air by a TV presenter. But globally, such surveillance will not change anything. We have come up with an antidote. We will laugh at TV disclaimers - together with you, the readers.

Send us the most glaring blunders of TV presenters (E-mail: letters@site), and we will publish the brightest of them, encouraging the most vigilant viewers. The TV presenters will be ashamed, but not offended. Just the right mood to look into the “Dictionary of Accents for Radio and Television Workers” - and correct yourself...

Hot seven "AiF"

1. “As you know, there are many camps in Mordovia. Putin went to the Pioneer camp.” (“Today”, NTV.)

2. “New houses are appearing in Grozny, like rare teeth in the mouth of a professional boxer.” ("Events. Moscow Time", TVC.)

3. "The captain and crew are absolutely sober, without traces." ("Time", ORT.)

4. “The building, according to residents, is crooked in a southerly direction.” (“Vremechko”, TVC.)

5. “A woman needs to invest twice as much to achieve equal social status with a man.” (“Delicacies”, TVC.)

6. “The position of a merchandiser is such a responsible one, because you can steal something, drag it away, take it away, appropriate it.” (“Segodnyachko”, TNT.)

7. “Another authority that they could influence is being taken away from the governors.” ("News of the Week", RTR.)

Pearls of sports commentators

Today Spartak made us happy again! This time he pleased the Italian fans!

Onopko receives the ball in the center of the field. His whole figure seems to say: “Who should I give it to?”

The rain should help Spartak. I don’t know how yet, but I have to...

The team was fined for the fact that the defender entered into a prone opponent after the whistle!

Karpov is better in this position.

The marathon is primarily a test for the spectators. Try waiting for more than two hours for the athletes to appear, then have time to wave to them - and that’s it!

I remember this difficult match in Kyiv - the players were urinating at every step!

And the ball had no choice but to hit the head and then go out of bounds!

The Danish defender raised his foot, and the Dutch attack fizzled out.

Sent by V. Ivanchev, Tver