The Idea of That Evolution Sounds Interesting

Scientists have found a missing link in pterodactyl evolution. It has characteristics of earlier and later pterodactyls, and suggests that evolution can happen in a geological blink of an eye.

The researchers say more study is needed to substantiate the idea of that evolution could occur relatively quickly, and that whole parts of a plant or animal's body could change at once.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/

And, like the pterodactyl discussed in this article, this sentence has characteristics of an earlier version ("the idea of evolution occurring") and the intended later version ("the idea that evolution could occur"). Only time will tell whether it will fully develop.

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They Found It Was Found

What is up with university laboratories? Something in the air that the chemistry students are cooking up? A guy stabbed a girl recently at a UCLA lab, inevitably making one think of last month's murder at Yale.

Last month, Connecticut authorities found the body of a 24-year-old pharmacology graduate student was found inside a wall of a lab building at Yale University.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/

Another instance of going from passive voice to active (or perhaps the other way), and somehow stumbling along the way and ending up with the pass-active. Since so much has already been written about the former case, this may have been a "copy & paste & slightly modify" error.

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Had Persuaded Me Had Gone

An anti-abortion protester was recounting her conquests:

At her home in Memphis, Mich., other examples followed: of two girls from Ohio who left an abortion clinic and, she said, told Ms. Anderson that her presence had persuaded them had not gone through with it.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/

Looks like there was an attempt to change persuade from intransitive to transitive. So originally she "had persuaded them and they had not gone..." Then there was an attempt at concision with, "persuaded them not to go..." But alas, the mark was missed, and we ended up with something in the middle.

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Although Hummer, And China

Fare thee well, Hummer. Go guzzle up the rest of the world's gas. Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Corp. has made a deal to purchase the Hummer brand from GM.

GM and Tengzhong said in a statement that the transaction still must be approved by the U.S. and Chinese governments, although and Chinese regulators initially expressed reservations about Tengzhong's ability to run such an enterprise.

Source: http://www.google.com/

I'm guessing the first part of this sentence started off positive to contrast with the "reservations," something like, "The transaction is expected to be approved straight away..." Then someone decided it was a little too positive (or negative, depending which side of the economy you're on), so they lopped it off and tacked on something else. But their aim was a little off and they missed that pesky little "although."

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So Who Was Ordered the Deaths, Then?

The grandson of Joseph Stalin doesn't say. He is suing a newspaper for stating that Stalin signed numerous death warrants.

Mr Dzhugashvili - who was not at the court as the case was brought on Thursday - says that is a lie, and that Stalin was never directly ordered the deaths of anyone.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/

I suppose originally the sentence went, "Stalin was never directly involved in..." Then an unsuccessful attempt was made to eliminate the passive voice, resulting in the odd hybrid, pass-active voice.

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