Whopper misquotes
The Indian Express has a very funny misquote in a story about a Calcutta-based phentermine spammer:
… Internet users from Asian countries were barred from viewing the site through fireballs to elude security agencies. [Link]
Methinks they meant firewalls.
Also check out this pearl from the Times of India’s mention that Gloria Steinem is replacing loose cannon author Germaine Greer at the Kitab (Book) lit fest in Bombay:
What the media should be flogging is their writers, for getting wrong one of the most famous quotes of the 20th century, a quote so famous it was immortalized in a U2 song.
But it gets better. They used a public domain photo from Wikipedia, but somehow managed to screw up copying the text out of the same article.
Steinem had once famously quipped “a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle…” [Wikipedia]
on Friday, February 16th, 2007, 3:00 am in Media, Times of India › 
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I will tell you why the second thing happened. When i was in school, we had the habit of copying. To prevent teachers from finding out, our pea sized brains converted the active to passive and passive to active. Change some lines. Well our reporter here has a high probability of being an intern.
“the quote was gleefully flogged by the media.”
I can almost see that happening.
So, it’s not just the illiterate Crosswords employees contributing to India’s shameful writ. And, to think that we’re amidst nuclear proliferation must be ridiculous. Let’s hope that they don’t misrepresent our intentions to the world. Why do we even bother?
Thanks for the two steps back.
EnaRai, your knee-jerk to any critique is itself a kind of colonialism. Figure out how you get from lazy writing to the giant chip on your shoulder (a strange one, considering you’re writing into a Bombay blog from the U.S.), and you’ll see the real bonds that oppress.
There is enough critique about Indians - native and the diaspora . Why do you contribute to it as an Indian?
Perhaps I misunderstood your intent at tough love toward India’s writers. I find your knee-jerk response vague.
So, explain to me your bonds with oppression. Perhaps it will explain the infallibility of the rest of the world.
Manish, I think you missed the extreme sophistication of the Indian Express. Seeing as the article is sourced in Kolkata, the land where v’s become b’s, a’s become o’s, and trains become trams, it is but natural that fireWalls are spelt as fireBalls.