Do you have any photos (or descriptions) of ‘spell check failures’ in the wild? There are plenty of examples online where someone puts a caption on a photo, posts something on a social media site that gets reposted, etc. What I’m talking about are misspellings and other errors that you see walking/driving/riding around in the real world.
One would think that if one is in the business of selling hot dogs, they’d know that the name ‘wiener’ came from Vienna, or ‘Wien’ as it’s called in German.
EDIT: And when I say ‘one I found’, I mean I was driving along and passed this place, and then later returned to snap a photo.
In any case I don’t see any reason to expect that someone who sells a given item would be much more likely to have knowledge of the etymology of the name of that item.
Also, it’s possible that the name of the owner (or founder of the chain) is Weiner and that the name, coupled with an image of a hotdog, is a play on words.
Such as the famous hot dog stand franchise named “Der Wienerschnitzel” when correct German is “Das Wienerschnitzel”. They just thought “Der” sounded more German-ish to Americans.
The example that comes immediately to mind for me is a home handyman I knew whose van had his name, phone number, and motto emblazoned across the back and flanks:
For German, it’s misspelled. For English, is it? I don’t know. At some point, usage rules. Descriptivist versus proscriptivist.
In any case, it isn’t necessarily a spell check fail.
Marketers often irk me with the games they play with language. This may be another case of that. It may be an owner’s name, or it may have been done for trademark purposes.
A few years ago (and for quite a long time, too), the local Tesco (major UK supermarket) had a bakery section, including a bit for decorated cakes.
One of the cakes they had proudly on display as a demo had a picture on the top with text underneath:
Blaze Pizza states their pizza is Fast Fire’d. They claim the apostrophe is intentional, but I’m betting it slipped through and they were stuck with it.
Those are still widely regarded as mistakes, probably becasue they need to be distinguished. “Weiner” is at the point where it is crossing over. Sure, some say it’s a spelling mistake. Some don’t.
The parking garage at my wife’s workplace has a bunch of parking spots that are “Strictly Reserved”. But upon closer inspection, the signs originally said “Strickly Reserved” and someone had to print up a bunch of stickers to cover up the boo-boo.
My favourite misplaced punctuation is a sign that said:
“Milk” $3.49
There’s something about putting quotes around the word “milk” that just makes it sound so unwholesome…
(depending on whether I’ve done the link accurately, you may need to turn it round till you see number 440)
The tag line reads “Supporting people with disabilities participate in all aspects of life.” Laudable sentiment, but … TO participate, fercryinoutloud! Makes me want to bring out the Big Red Marker every time I pass it.
The weird thing, of course, is that “Helping people participate” would be fine. Maybe the language will change over the next 10 years so that “Supporting people participate” is also acceptable, but right now it’s just … wrong.
The place where I work just had some renovations to the cafeteria. This is a campus with many, many buildings. They decided to build this nice box in the cafeteria for people to place their umbrellas while having a meal. It’s a nice box with a matrix of compartments, nicely painted and adorned with a beautiful hand-painted large cursive font that says “Umbrella’s.”
