| # |
Page |
Description |
| 1 |
8 |
"then vice-versa" should be "than vice-versa" |
| 2 |
18 |
"Britian" should be "Britain" |
| 3 |
26 |
"Baleri" should be "Baleari" |
| 4 |
26 |
"ot" should be "of" |
| 5 |
35 |
"Pri-colo" should be "Pricolo" |
| 6 |
36 |
"hangers" should be "hangars" (we are taking
about airplanes, not wardrobes! |
| 7 |
44 |
"Albatross" should be "Albatros", because it
refers to the name of an Italian ship. This mistake
occurs twice. |
| 8 |
45 |
"lead" shoul be "led" |
| 9 |
46 |
"diffrence" should be "difference" |
| 10 |
54 |
"would named" should be "was named" |
| 11 |
72 |
"from in Sicily" should be "from Sicily" |
| 12 |
74 |
"Boliano" should be "Bolzano" |
| 13 |
77 |
"a air" should be "an air" |
| 14 |
93 |
"decided inside" should be "decided instead" |
| 15 |
96 |
"maiali was" should be "maiale was", because
"maiali" is plural |
| 16 |
104 |
"the two of" should be "two of" |
| 17 |
117 |
"mading" should be "making" |
| 18 |
121 |
"crusiers" should be "cruisers" |
| 19 |
127 |
"While touring the port large crowds had
turned out" should be "while he was touring the port large
crouds had turned out", because it was Cunningham who was
touring the port, not the crowds. I would have also
inserted a comma after "the port", but let's not be too
picky... |
| 20 |
131 |
"withdrawl" should be "withdrawal" |
| 21 |
141 |
Very bad grammar. It could be fixed for
example by replacing "and they promised the Italian"
with "and their failed promise to the Italians to provide" |
| 22 |
144 |
"Marinkommando" should be "Marinekommando" |
| 23 |
156 |
"It has always taken" should be "It has
always been taken" |
| 24 |
159 |
"commision" should be "commission" |
| 25 |
165 |
"approachs" should "approaches" |
| 26 |
170 |
"Calcutta, Calcutta and Carlisle" should be
"Calcutta and Carlisle" |
| 27 |
192 |
"Guilia" should be "Giulia". This is an
example of the common mistake made by English speakers when they write
"Guiseppe" instead of "Giuseppe" and "Guilio" instead of "Giulio" (my name... sigh...) |
| 28 |
199 |
"They was" should be "They were" |
| 29 |
200 |
Bad, bad grammar: "Four freighters were at
sea, three in a convoy escorted by six destroyers that had left Taranto
on the afternoon of the 16th, and the other by a destroyer and a torpedo-boat."
Grammatically, this sentence means that the six destroyers escorting
three of the freighters had left Taranto, leaving unclear where the
three escorted freighters were coming from. But I believe that the
intention was to say that the three freighters had left Taranto together
with their escort of six destroyers. At the very least, the sentence
is tortuous and ambiguous. I would have said: "Four freighters were at
sea. Three had left Taranto on the afternoon of the 16th with an escort
of six destroyers, and the fourth freighter was escorted by a destroyer
and a torpedo-boat." Or something like that. |
| 30 |
204 |
"nearly being colliding" should be "nearly colliding" |
| 31 |
204 |
"such just an attemp" shoud be "such an attempt" |
| 32 |
204 |
There are two consecutive "that"s, one before a
quotation and one at the beginning of it. One of the two should not be
there. I'm not sure whether the quoted text contained the opening
"that", but I would have removed it anyway. it doesn't seem nice to start a quotation with "... that". |
| 33 |
204 |
The authors inserted a "[sic]" within a
quotation after the word "neutralising". They should have not, because
they were quoting admiral Cunningham, and in British English
"neutralise" is correct. It is only in American English that the word
would have been spelled as "neutralize". They were not quoting Nimitz, were they? |
| 34 |
206 |
"try and convince" should be "try to convince". To use "and" after "try" is a colloquialism and should have no place in a History book. |
| 35 |
206 |
"Ricarrdi" should be "Riccardi" |
| 36 |
206 |
"shipbuilding capacity was not sufficient to replace losses of warships and particularly merchant ships which were being sunk by the Allies in increasing numbers". First of all, "particularly" is out of place, because "merchant ships" are not a subset of "warships". Secondly, which should be preceded by a comma. I would have said: "shipbuilding capacity was not sufficient to replace losses of warships and of merchant ships, which were being sunk by the Allies in increasing numbers". It would still remain a somewhat awkward sentence, but at least it would be correct. |
| 37 |
206 |
"liaision" should be "liaison" |
| 38 |
207 |
"the supply situation to North Africa" should be "the supply situation in North Africa" |
| 39 |
210 |
"the need to chose" should be "the need to choose" |
| 40 |
211 |
"took place at Bremen" should be "took place in Bremen" |
| 41 |
211 |
"(known as Ra.Ri from Radiodetectortelemetri)". First of all "Radiodetectortelemetri" is not Italian. This term refers to rangefinders that Ugo Tiberio developed for the Regia Marina,
but it was written "Radio-Detector Telemetri", or "RDT". The
abbreviation "RaRi" (without any period in between) was used to
abbreviate the word "Radiotelemetri", which was introduced later.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to determine the meaning of "Ri",
although I suspect that it might refer to "Ritorno", which means
"return". "Radio Ritorno" would make sense, as a radiotelemetro
measures the distance of an object by determining how long it takes for a
radio wave to come back to the generating antenna after being reflected
by the object in question. |
| 42 |
212 |
"would be pass" should be "would be passed" |
| 43 |
213 |
"Ammirglio" should be "Ammiraglio" |
| 44 |
227 |
"less agricultural land then" should be "less agricultural land than" |
| 45 |
235 |
"Stormos" should be "Stormi". The authors built the plural of the Italian "stormo" as if it were an English word. |
| 46 |
236 |
"Gioherti" should be "Gioberti" |
| 47 |
240 |
A "pearl" of grammatical beauty: "The German
3rd Motor Torpedo Boat Flottilla under Lieutenant-Commander Kemnade
operating against the retreating British fleeing Tobruk and sank the
South African minesweeper Parktown and some small craft." MMmmm... "operating and sank"? |
| 48 |
240 |
"'Fingerspitzengefühl' ('gut feeling')". Here there are two mistakes. First of all, Fingerspitzengefühl literally means "feeling with the tips of the fingers" and is used in German
to indicate an attention to a finely tuned intuition. I would
translate it as something like "finely tuned intuition". The
translation ("good feeling") would be in German the simpler "Gutes
gefühl". Secondly, "gut" is not English, is it? |
| 49 |
241 |
"on other hand" should be "on the other hand" |
| 50 |
262 |
"Of these, 10,932 of them" should be either "Of these, 10,932" or "10,932 of them" |
| 51 |
263 |
"'Soldatis'" should be "'Soldati'".
"Soldati" means "soldiers" and is already plural ("soldato" being the
singular form). In any case, the plural in Italian is not done by
appending an 's' to the singular. "Soldati" was the name of a class of destroyers. |
| 52 |
268 |
"had to taken" should be "had to be taken" |
| 53 |
269 |
"took nearer 60 seconds" should be "took close to 60 seconds", or perhaps "approximately 60 seconds" |
| 54 |
269 |
"also played apart" should be "also played a part" |
| 55 |
273 |
"they was" should be "they were" |
| 56 |
273 |
"but they along with Vichy were fooled". OK. Commas
are out of fashion, but if they didn't want to write "but they, along
with Vichy, were fooled", they could have said "but they were fooled
along with Vichy". Or not? |
| 57 |
278 |
"MFP of 200 tons (there were three types, A, B, and C)". they should have said that MFP stands for Marinefährprahm (naval ferry barge). Also, there were several types of MFPs, not just three. And, in any case, why write a comma after "types" instead of a colon? |
| 58 |
281 |
"losees" should be "losses" |
| 59 |
284 |
"were the PT boats which" should be "were the PT boats that" |
| 60 |
285 |
"attack transports which" should be "attack transports, which" |
| 61 |
288 |
"Pantellaria" shoul be "Pantelleria" |
| 62 |
289 |
"partol" should be "patrol" |
| 63 |
290 |
" the where" should be ", where" |
| 64 |
294 |
"afetr" should be "after" |
| 65 |
294 |
On the same line: "oi" should be "of" |
| 66 |
294 |
Again, a few lines below: "oi" should be "of". How can it be? 'I' and 'F' are not even close on the keybord... |
| 67 |
296 |
"as these" should be "these" |
| 68 |
298 |
"south of the Appenines". Two problems here. Firsly, "Apennines"
is the correct spelling in English. Secondly, the Apennines are a
mountain chain that stretches from the Ligurian Alps in northern Italy
to Reggio Calabria, at the tip of the Italian peninsula. Therefore,
"south of the Apennines" is close to meaningless. |
| 69 |
303 |
"disagreeded" should be "disagreed" |
| 70 |
306 |
"Abdeil" should be "Abdiel". The Royal Navy had over the years three ships named Abdiel. |
| 71 |
306 |
"Guilio" should be "Giulio". Again... |
| 72 |
307 |
"It flys" should be "It flies". |
| 73 |
309 |
"the Germans had effectively air superiority" is preceded by a comma. It should be preceded by a full stop or, at least, a semicolon. |
| 74 |
311 |
"and were often had not been" ??? |
| 75 |
312 |
Another "try and" that should be "try to" |
| 76 |
314 |
"which was within their means" should be ", although it was within their means" |
To top it off, there are even two mistakes in the captions of the images inserted in the middle of the book: Another occurrence of the infamous "Guilio" instead "Giulio" and a wrong date (they wrote 1950 instead 1940).
Almost a mistake every four pages of text. Even MS Word would have detected many of them. And what I have is the 2011 edition, not the original edition of 2002. There has also been a US edition...
Now, I have probably made mistakes in this article. But this is just bloody me, not the Frontline Books in London.
This is a real shame. I'm seriously considering sending the list of mistakes to the publisher...
For your reference, here are the links to all past “Authors’ Mistakes” articles:
Lee Child: Die Trying
Colin Forbes: Double Jeopardy
Akiva Goldsman: Lost in Space
Vince Flynn: Extreme Measures
Máire Messenger Davies & Nick Mosdell: Practical Research Methods for Media and Cultural Studies
Michael Crichton & Richard Preston: Micro
Lee Child: The Visitor
Graham Tattersall: Geekspeak
Graham Tattersall: Geekspeak (addendum)
Donna Leon: A Noble Radiance
007 Tomorrow Never Dies
Vince Flynn: American Assassin
Brian Green: The Fabric of the Cosmos
John Stack: Master of Rome
Dean Crawford: Apocalypse
Daniel Silva: The Fallen Angel
Tom Clancy: Locked On
Peter David: After Earth
Douglas Preston: Impact
Brian Christian: The Most Human Human
Donna Leon: Fatal Remedies
Sidney Sheldon: Tell Me Your Dreams
David Baldacci: Zero Day
Sidney Sheldon: The Doomsday Conspiracy
CSI Miami
Christopher L. Bennett: Make Hub, Not War
CSI Miami #2 (Robert Hornak)
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