I am a public defender in a semi-rural county. My clients sometimes send me mail addressed to the “Public offender”. I got one once addressed to the “Pubic defender”. I took that one to the chief judge and told him that if I was going to have to start doing that, I’d need a raise.
I have a book of typos in ads and signs, I think from ‘National Lampoon’.
The one that made me hysterical was a newspaper story with pictures of Sesame Street characters, and a list of their names in the caption. There was Big Bird, The Count, Grover, Kermit, maybe some others.
They forgot the ‘o’ in The Count’s name.
I don’t know if I ever laughed so hard in my life.
I work at a video game company, and I just saw a preliminary design doc for a urban brawling game. The first sentence was supposed to be “[name of game]'s primary attraction is the satisfaction of beating up a man”. However, the word “beating” was replaced with “being”. I’m not sure how much market there would be for that game, at least on the PS2.
(It didn’t help that the next sentence started talking about how responsive the button was…)
Many adult entertainment Web sites are obviously created by people for whom English is not their native tongue. One particular site, in their advertisement, wished to make it known that their “teen” models were brand new and had never been photographed before. Their ad conveyed that bit of information by proclaiming:
“All teenagers have not been shot yet!”
In honor of Mother’s Day, my church was scheduled to sing a hymn listed in the bulliten as “Father of our Mothers” The traditional hymn it is based on is “Faith of our Fathers” but the secretary made a mistake when substituting Mothers for fathers.
Heh.
Gets my vote.
And if you like funny typos, you can’t do much better than watching Jay Leno’s “Headlines” bit every monday on the Tonight Show, after the monologue.
It’s the funniest 15 minutes on TV, bar none.
Spotted a few months ago, in the reference list of a Human Sexuality textbook I was proofreading:
A. Author (1993). “Incidence of HIV among men who have sex with me.” Journal Title 26, 13:121–124.
(1) That’s a mighty selective sample!
(2) You got some ‘splainin’ to do!
Keep 'em comin. I’m going to be a Reader’s Digest millionaire if this thread keeps up!! 
One of my graduate school assignments recently was to go to a grocery store and right a 5 page paper about how it was organized. Fully half the class described what they found in the “isles” of the grocery store. Spellcheck doesn’t know that the correct word is “aisles”.
Umm, in the spirit of this thread I feel the need to point out that I do know the difference between “right” and “write”. We were assigned to “write” a paper.
I used to work for a company that produced the advertising circulars for grocery and department stores. Once a typesetter made a great tyop (ha) for a Kmart ad -
“Stretch Cocks. One size fits all.” (Should have been SOCKS.)
It only went out on proof and didn’t actually print like that. Imagine if it had - what a run to Kmart that would have been!
My own personal best typo was in a menu. Wouldn’t you enjoy a delicious “CRAP SALAD?” It must have been a Freudian typo, since the “P” is nowhere near the “B” and I personally don’t much care for crab.
Back to ad circulars, the great story of a typo that actually printed was Chicken Farts for 39cents a pound. I remember hearing that the store actually blew up baggies to show the customers, but I don’t know for sure that actually happened.
This sounds like such a cliché but it’s actually true. My sister spent a year in Japan on the JET scheme (where native English speakers go over to work as teaching assistants in schools). Anyway, everything was organised for her and she was sent a letter giving her her travel details, flight number etc. on which was printed:
‘We have arranged your fright’ :eek:
On a discussion of White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade… for those not familiar with the concept, think of the recent movie Underworld for a snapshot.
A friend in a description of some newly arrived players called them “Noveau Rice.” Clearly, he meant “Noveau Riche”, but the Ann Rice reference made everyone choke.
Is it possible that the bottom part of the B had worn off? I’ve seen that happen to letters in menus from time to time.
dan, I think the poster was the one who made the crab/crap typo, from the comments about P not being near B (indicating that he/she was the one typing) and about the poster not liking crab.
I assumed otherwise, since the poster was reading a menu.
Exactly – while typesetting it. See also “My own personal best . . .”
pohjonen, get yer butt back in here!
What difference does it make?
“My own personal best” could certainly mean “the best typo I personally witnessed.”
This “typo” has received far more analysis than it could possibly deserve.
Got a flyer on my windshield the other day for a florist:
“$19.99 for a Bokay”
Not a typo, just extreme stupidity.
Mine’s an unfortunate bit of typesetting that was obviously missed in proofing rather than an outright typo. It also helps if your smutty mind is British.
A few years ago Aviation Week had a shortish news item that contained a sentence reading something like “Iran is believed to have chemical weapons in its arsenal”. Inevitably, the linebreak fell such that one of the lines, as printed on the page, read “Iran is believed to have chemical weapons in its arse-”.