As many of you know, I’m a newspaper reporter for a not-too-big daily paper in Northern Michigan. I was an editor for a small community weekly paper before that.
It never ceases to amaze me how you can look at something you’ve typed four or so times, turn it in to someone else who reads it, then someone else, then someone else, all of whom miss some big error. Then, the NANOSECOND you’re looking at your copy of the paper, the error stands out like blinking neon.
A little tip for folks out there doing anything along these same lines of work, where the general population will be reading your writing: Go into your computer’s Spell-Checker dictionary and remove the word ‘pubic.’
The word will rarely, if ever, come up in your writing, and Spell-Checker will flag it as a misspelling on those rare occasions. The word ‘public,’ however, comes up frequently. Misspell it a certain way, and Spell-Checker doesn’t catch it … you see where I’m going.
“Stevens brings 20 years of pubic experience to her new job.”
Thankfully, that one wasn’t one of mine.
A good one from my paper recently - someone said a guy was released from jail on a “personal reconnaissance bond.” Did that mean he had to go lurk around unseen? I think they were going for “personal recognizance bond.”
My English teacher gets magazines for her students and forces us to read them every once in a while. It’s amazing how many typos you can find in a magazine about the English language. Like can’t written as “can t” yes, the space was there but the apostrophe wasn’t.
Seen in an article in the Albany Times Union this past May, following the death of NASCAR driver Adam Petty: “A personable young man, Adam never minded making pubic appearances for his fans.”
This wasn’t in print, but it was on public (pubic?) display, and it was funny.
Driving on the highway past a restaurant in one of the larger cities around here one day, on its marquee was boldly displayed that night’s special:
Chicken Cord on Blue
I could just picture the restaurant manager telling some young slacker from the kitchen to go out and change the sign to the dinner special, telling him what it was.
I shudder to consider what a “chicken cord” might be.
Not the same thing, of course, but this reminded me of that Benny Hill skit, where one of the character puts up a billboard which reads “John Smith, The rapist”
Benny Hill’s character reads the sign, slaps the guy around a little, and pushes the words together so it reads “John Smith, Therapist”
[sub]And no, I don’t condone rape. But I thought it WAS a bit of funny wordplay.[/sub]
Reminds me of the hilarious SNL “Celebrity Jeopardy” skit. That’s probably the funniest skit running right now…
Sean Connery: I’ll take “The rapists” for 500, Alex.
Alex Trebek: Umm, Mr. Connery, that’s “therapists.” Pick again.
Sean Connery: I’ll take “Swords” for 100.
Alex: That’s “S words,” Sean.
(or maybe it was the other way around. I kind of remember Sean Connery saying “swords” but it makes more sense the other way…)
Or my favorite one:
Sean Connery: I’ll take “Anal Bum Cover” for 1000, Alex.
Alex: No, Mr. Connery, that’s “An Album Cover.” Pick again.
Sean Connery: Like hell it is. I spent 5 years of my life trying to patent my Anal Bum Cover invention, give me Anal Bum Cover for 1000.
(It is spelled “Connery,” right? If it isn’t, that would be pretty ironic.)
Local paper ran an article about the theft of a few statues from a store. The sentence went something along the lines of “Police hold little hope of recovering the goods unless the thief tries to porn them”. I don’t know what they thought that thief was going to do with the statues, and I don’t want to know. I’d have thought the police would have more luck if someone tried to pawn the goods.
Same page, front cover, was an article about vandelism in a street that the locals had been trying to “beatify”. There was a third error on that page, but I’ve forgotten what it was now. I was so unimpressed by the whole saga that I wrote to the newspaper office, and offered to take up a collection so they could hire a proof-reader. They never responded.
cazzle, I’ve found that organizations are VERY hesitant to respond to letters like that. I bought a book a few years back, and found it just RIFE with typos! I’m talking your vs. you’re, their vs. there, missing hyphens, misspellings, all sorts of stuff. It was a pretty good book too (if anyone would care to try to find it, I don’t remember the title, but it’s a fiction book about an airport that’s implementing a new system in its tower that gets disabled in an effort to cause two planes to crash … and the heroic air traffic controller that saves the day. Anyone else read this one?), so the typos kinda ruined it a bit for me.
Anyway, after finishing it, I read it a second time, red pen in hand, and edited it according to AP style throughout the entire book. In this 350-odd page book, there were something like 450, 500 typos. At least one on EVERY page, and then some. So I mailed the corrected book, my resume and a cover letter (I work for a publishing company as a writer/editor/proofreader/what-have-you) to the publishers (I believe it was Penguin or a subsidiary, but I don’t recall for sure) asking if they would be interested in my services as a freelance proofreader, based on my experience and the numerous errors I found in their already (but never should have been) published book.
They failed to reply. I’d like to think they were simply to embarrassed to, however.
I saw a classified ad in the “Lost and Found” section
about a “lost Egyptian bass boat.” I wondered how anyone
could misplace a boat. A few days later, the ad was
corrected to read “passport” instead of “bass boat.”
Craftsy people can design and create some beautiful objects. Unfortunately, they often don’t seem to be very, uh, verbally-orient(at)ed.
I just got out an old crochet magazine (Magic Crochet, if any of you know it). It basically consists of patterns for doilies and tablecloths and bedspreads and the like, and each pattern has an eye-catching little slogan–dumb things, like “Heirloom treasure!” or “Sheer elegance!” The one I’m working right now says, “Biginner’s Luck!”
I’ve squinted at it six ways from Sunday and I how it could have been meant as a pun, but maybe I’m just dull. Makes me teeth ache to look at it, though.
I saw a display once in a dry cleaning shop that talked about preserving one’s wedding gown so one can remember the walk down the “isle”. AARGH! Is that the same isle that Gilligan was on? I pointed it out to the clerk, who shrugged and said that the display came that way from the supplier. Yes, it wasn’t a hand-made sign but a “professionally”-done point-of-purchase display. :rolleyes:
A few years ago, the diplomas for the graduating class at the US Naval Acadamy in Annapolis had to be re-printed because some moron spelled it " Navel Academy".
This probably doesn’t qualify as “In Print”, but I see them quite a bit.
You know the little graphic that is behind a newscaster’s head? (there is a name for them, but I can’t remember what it is)
There are typos on those all the time. Not necessarily ignorance-misspellings, just typos.
“War in Midle East”
“Locla Fire Destroys House”
“Baltimroe Cops Want Raise”
Kind of funny, sometimes, but still amazing when one gets on the air.
