It's not just fear of all sums, it's dyscalculia!

I know what I'm good at. I am a storehouse of trivia, both useful and useless. That's how I could immediately -- without any hesitation, I must emphasise -- zero in on what was wrong with this graphic which I posted yesterday:

Today at the office, I asked several colleagues -- fellow experienced journalists, mind you -- if they could tell what's wrong with the illustration. Even after my prompting them with words like "present-day Russia", none could spot the anachronism, ie, the hammer and sickle, and the red star.

I am also a good proof-checker, and can easily tell what's wrong with many a headline, like this one:

Did you? I'll tell you at the end of this blog entry.

In an earlier posting, I had also pointed out an "error of commission" -- an unnecessarily added word that drastically changed the speaker's intended meaning:

Read the last quoted remark carefully... "has enabled them to live according to their station in society without extra sources of illicit income". Aiyoh! That means their salaries are already a source of illicit income!

I am a superb spotter of dangling participles:

What the sub-heading above is saying is that these scientists are squids and mussels!

And I'll show you a double entendre faster than you can say "double entendre"!...

How do you see more of a person? Other than??...
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But I'm hopeless with numbers, in a certain way. This letter below made me realise that I may be having the same condition as the writer's daughter (who happens, also, to have a flair for the English language):

  
I checked online and, yes, I now have a handle on why I am possibly a "dyscalculic"!

(Incidentally, I could not help but easily spot the error above... "between 3% and 6% of the population" is affected, not are affected.)

Oh dear, from that checklist for Teenagers and Adults, I have to confess to "all of the above".

The two screen grabs above were taken from:

http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/about-dyslexia/schools-colleges-and-universities/dyscalculia.html

http://www.ncld.org/types-learning-disabilities/dyscalculia/what-is-dyscalculia

One can also watch this enlightening video:

http://www.ncld.org/learning-disability-resources/videos/video-what-is-dyscalculia
  
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Finally, so what is wrong with this headline?

Data is the plural form; the singular is datum. So the headline should be: "China factory data reinforce...".