A local business had a big, professionally painted sign that said “VECHILES WHOLESALE”. It was up for almost a year before they corrected it.
But that’s how it’s pronounced!! 
Back about 15 years ago, the local paper in our tiny town (a week-daily) printed a story about a march/rally that was taking place the next week to focus attention on Spouse Abuse. Included in their brief story was “The rally will end up at Smith Park, where Local Dignatary will speak, followed by a minute of abuse.”
Next day, this correction was filed. “Yesterday, we printed that the rally for Spouse Abuse would end up at Smith Park, where Local Dignatary will speak, followed by a minute of abuse. What we meant to say was, Local Dignatary will speak, followed by a minute of abuse.”
Correction #2: "This paper inadvertantly printed “Local Dignatary will speak, followed by a minute of abuse. What we meant to say was, Local Dignatary will speak, with a minute of abuse following”.
I think they finally got it right on Correction #3.
The other one I remember was when I was working in the management office of a large shopping mall. We were getting a new tenant, a restaurant, and some of their initial start-up bills were coming to our office. Apparently someone at the Gas Company couldn’t read their own handwriting. Their first bill came addressed to “Fresh Choke Restaurant”.
Typos are so common, I rarely even notice them any more, which is rather sad. But there is one at a large kindergarden nearby that just irritates the hell out of me: “Little Learner’s.” Learning what, precisely, I don’t know. But my guess is proper English isn’t one of the skills taught.
Aughhhhhh!
An ad projected onto a screen at a movie theatre in Washington DC recruiting for the Metropolitan Police. They misspell the name of the mayor.
His name is not Anthonoy Williams
At my high school, following the suicide of one of the teachers, the school newspaper ran a memorial page, with the headline “Remebering Mr. McCloskey” in inch high letters across the top of the page. Another classic one was the description of someone as “frinedly-bear like”. I believe the copy editor that year ended up at Harvard.
Three stories:
A congressional campaign I volunteered on got buttons with the candidate’s name misspelled. They were returned rather quickly.
Where I used to work, I had the dull task of summarizing the happenings of each shift for big mucky-muck managers and supervisors types. These went out under the title “Shift Report xx/xx/xxxx.” Yes, I (accidentally mind you) dropped the “f” in “shift.” It’s worth noting that this had a dramatic effect on my co-worker’s morale.
My high school yearbook for my freshman year misspelled “editor” in the credits.
Oh damn, I missed Saltire’s post. That second one seems to be a common mistake.
Well, yes, Short, but it’s funny that it went out in your Turnover report that way. I can just imagine the “shift” I’d take if I sent out Turnover that way. Whew!
I worked as a copy editor for over a year at a daily newspaper and I saw some pretty bad mistakes during that time.
I think the worst one was made by the sports department. There was an article about a game at Slippery Rocks High School. Three guesses what “Rocks” got changed to in the headline.
In my Property Law Casebook (Dukemenier or something like that), there was a chapter on Takings (I think that was the chapter) and the paragraph was on how property might be taken for the general public welfare - instead, it said, “…for the general pubic welfare.” I prayed that I would get called on in class that day so I could tell my property professor that land was sometimes taken by the government for the general pubic welfare - and that I was very concerned about the pubic welfare.
Tibs
A college professor of mine used to work for a publishing company. He was part of a team that edited and fact-checked a book called Doing Business in Chile. My professor told me that all these professional proofreaders and editors and the like managed to check and recheck the book until, as they were about to send the galleys to be printed for the first edition of the book, someone pointed out that everywhere in the book that the name of the country of Chile was mentioned, it was spelled Chili! Not just in the title, but throughout the entire text! Luckily, they managed to change this grave error right at the last minute and the book was released without this colossal mistake appearing in the first print run.
One of the more famous typos in the history of English wasn’t actually a typo at all, but more of an intentional misspelling. When the first edition of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer newspaper hit the presses, the editors had a problem. There were too many letters in the title of the newspaper; something had to go. It was at that point (circa 1853) that the city of Cleaveland, Ohio, was spelled Cleveland.
Personally, I don’t see why they just didn’t change the title to the Dealer or the Plain or some-such, or at least play with the fonts. Who knows? If computers wouldn’t allow us to play with fonts so much, this might be the Strait Dop Mesage Bord.
I used to work for a newspaper at a time when non-discrimatory, non-sexist, and gender-free terminology was beginning to be demanded of everybody concerned with the newspaper’s production. Someone enthusiastic to enforce these demands (or willing to risk their paycheck for fun) altered the phrase “wine, women and song” in a journalist’s story to read “wine, people and song” and it was printed like that.
Our local newspaper once ran a story about a house fire, where 15 trucks & 3 men responded. We tried to figure out how many trips those 3 guys had to make to get all 15 trucks to the fire. Back & forth, and so on; I believe the house may have completely burned while the relay was performed.
This past summer at the Maryland State Fair, I saw professionally printed signs saying: “No Smokeing.”
Professionally printed! Not hand-made. I was amazed. It was funny to hear other people commenting on it…and actually discussing whether or not it was wrong.
I work in a federal building that has a professional-looking sign proudly proclaiming our “mail shute”. The truly sad thing is I don’t think anyone else here besides me has noticed it.
The ancient coin company I used to work for was involved with an investment fund (which bought and sold ancient coins). The coin fund was called “The Athena Fund”.
To publicize this fund, a poster was created. Professionally done, it features pictures of ancient coins and a map of the ancient world.
One of the countries on the map was “Egpyt”.
[sub]I suppose they COULD have spelled “Cleopatra” with a “k”.[/sub]
An USofA nationwide restaurant chain circa '06 listed all of the children’s menu prices in the manner of…¢.95.
The total of,
¢.95 plus
¢.50 plus
¢.35 = ¢1.80
That is one, and eight tenths of one cent/penny American.
For some of the different countries, the ¢ (cent/penny), should have been a $ (dollar) sign. The restaurant’s menu had mistakenly listed the children’s prices at one hundredth the intended cost.
At that time, there was no age restriction on whom could order from the children’s menu.
A gang of Boy Scouts of America (and their proctors) ate well for several weeks at many of the area wide franchisees, occasionally after heavy debate, until [grin]those corporate demons[/grin] amended the error of their ways.
Waterholin’, fishin’, knot-tyin’, and wench-watchin’ twernt never tha same after the fix…but life was still good!
The most infamous misprint of all time occurred in the 1631 edition in the hot-off-the-press King James Version. Because of a simple typesetting error, the word “not” was accidentally left out, which left this verse reading “Thou shalt commit adultery.” The printer was given a huge fine and this version became known as the “Wicked Bible.”
Almost as popular as the “Bugger All This” Bible.