# Tiny errors that drive you insane **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 29, 2016, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557 "2016-02-29T19:58:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/221 "2016-03-10T22:33:32Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I was reading a piece on Wikipedia the other day where someone was described as “the **spit and image** of \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_.” :smack: That’s a regional idiom. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/222 "2016-03-10T22:35:39Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > For many years past, I’ve frequently encountered “the spit and image of…” – used interchangeably with “the spitting image of…”. While acknowledging that the latter is more generally accepted as the “correct” Incorrectly so, as it turns out! [Spit and image](http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/spitting-image.html) [is actually](http://grammarist.com/usage/spitting-image/) [the older version.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1977/whats-the-origin-of-spitting-image) ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/223 "2016-03-10T23:58:34Z")
“Skid Row” is also just wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/224 "2016-03-11T00:38:49Z")
What should it be? ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/225 "2016-03-11T00:54:48Z")
> [@Kiber](#): > > Cups: They used to have this statement printed on the side of their cups - “Please put litter in its place.” Um - the place for litter is on the ground. If you put it in the trash, it would be garbage and not litter. So every one of their cups was quite literally promoting the increase in litter. I think this is easily resolved. Look, what’s that on the ground? Litter. Is that where it’s supposed to be? No, it’s supposed to be in a trash can. Well, gee, I wish someone had put it in its place… Maybe that only really works in a bizarre hypothetical-future-looking-backwards tense of some sort, but it doesn’t at all bug me the way that say, “literally”-meaning-“metaphorically” does. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/226 "2016-03-11T01:38:49Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > The flags of some Muslim nations (e.g., Turkey) are the same way. Or, they (e.g., Turkmenistan) have stars between the cusps, which is also impossible. Maybe it’s the view with a really tiny moon? And Turkmenistan is an image of Subaru doing a sweet-ass jump in front of a crescent moon, except one of the stars on the emblem (Pleiades) broke off. That doesn’t explain Tunisia and Algeria’s bizarre design. Ninja shuriken attack? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/227 "2016-03-11T06:15:46Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What should it be? “Skid Road”. It was named for the road in Seattle that they slid the logs down to get them to the harbor. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/228 "2016-03-11T06:41:48Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > For many years past, I’ve frequently encountered “the spit and image of…” – used interchangeably with “the spitting image of…”. Congratulations. It’s the first time in nearly sixty years that I’ve encountered it. Though I do see that “spitting” could well be a corruption of “spirit and.” ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/229 "2016-03-11T07:51:58Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > For many years past, I’ve frequently encountered “the spit and image of…” – used interchangeably with “the spitting image of…”. While acknowledging that the latter is more generally accepted as the “correct” > [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > Incorrectly so, as it turns out! > > [Spit and image](http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/spitting-image.html) [is actually](http://grammarist.com/usage/spitting-image/) [the older version.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1977/whats-the-origin-of-spitting-image) Thanks – very interesting ! So per one item in the link, “spit and image” is not just “random wordage” – it actually refers to something, i.e. God’s creating Adam in Genesis. Perhaps I’ve been unconsciously influenced by the British current-affairs-satire television show with grotesque puppets, “Spitting Image”. > **[Spitting Image](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_image)** > > Spitting Image is a British satirical television puppet show, created by Peter Fluck, Roger Law and Martin Lambie-Nairn. First broadcast in 1984, the series was produced by 'Spitting Image Productions' for Central Independent Television over 18 series which aired on the ITV network. The series was nominated and won numerous awards, including ten BAFTA Television Awards, and two Emmy Awards in 1985 and 1986 in the Popular Arts Category. The series features puppet caricatures of contemporary On... ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/230 "2016-03-11T07:54:24Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > “Skid Row” is also just wrong. > [@Chronos](#): > > What should it be? > [@eschereal](#): > > “Skid Road”. It was named for the road in Seattle that they slid the logs down to get them to the harbor. I’d submit that “Skid Row” – even if inaccurate vis-a-vis the urban geography of Seattle – _feels_ extremely right, as a byword for a place where the destitute and desperate hang out. As people remark, “sometimes sound trumps sense”. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/231 "2016-03-11T12:44:45Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > “Skid Road”. It was named for the road in Seattle that they slid the logs down to get them to the harbor. It might have been an error at one time but it’s been the standard for over a hundred years. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/232 "2016-03-11T13:51:59Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > Perhaps I’ve been unconsciously influenced by the British current-affairs-satire television show with grotesque puppets, “Spitting Image”. In the original _ **Poldark** _, when Geoffrey Charles sees Valentine after having been away at school for several years, he says what I always thought was “Why, he’s the spitting image of Uncle Ross!” I’ll have to see if I can find this passage in one of the books (_ **The Four Swans** _, I think), but I’m wondering if there’s also a video of the series out there somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2016, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/233 "2016-03-11T21:00:50Z")
Spitting image is a common version of the phrase…it’s just the most recent one, appearing early in the 20th century. So it doesn’t seem unlikely that he said it. (OTOH, it COULD also have been spit and image or spitten image.) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/234 "2016-03-12T00:19:33Z")
I had always thought the “spit” was meant to be physically descriptive of the father’s ejaculate. It took me years to realize it meant “spirit.” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/235 "2016-03-12T17:36:35Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > I’d submit that “Skid Row” – even if inaccurate vis-a-vis the urban geography of Seattle – _feels_ extremely right, as a byword for a place where the destitute and desperate hang out. As people remark, “sometimes sound trumps sense”. It always felt to me like a combination of “Skid Road” and “Death Row.” Not just where the destitute hang out, but where their fortunes are extremely unlikely to get any better before they die. ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/236 "2016-03-12T18:31:38Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > It might have been an error at one time but it’s been the standard for over a hundred years. And I believe that the term date back to the 17th century, before the foundation of the city of Seattle. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/237 "2016-03-12T18:51:49Z")
> [@Kiber](#): > > Fries: They used to (and maybe still do) sell fries in 3 sizes: Medium, Large and Extra Large. Gah! How can the smallest of something be Medium? I’d guess that there was actually a fourth size smaller than the medium, the kid’s size. McDonald’s currently sells fries in [four sizes](http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/product_nutrition.snackssides.6050.small-french-fries.html), kid’s, small, medium, and large. > [@turtlescanfly](#): > > As I recall it (and it has been almost as long since I’ve seen it, FWIW), they are walking down the street AFTER he’s picked her up from the police station. They are discussing names for her (since her actual name sounds like a dolphin’s screech and is thus unpronounceable to him). He throws out a couple of names that she rejects, then makes an offhand comment like “Let’s see where are we… oh, 5th and Madison” and she lights up when she hears Madison and decides that’s what she wants to be called. I watched this movie many times as a kid, and your description of how Madison gets her name is correct. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/238 "2016-03-12T20:56:33Z")
Here’s one that always bugs me. In _This Is Spinal Tap,_ after Nigel Tufnel quits and the band decides to perform [a jazz fusion experiment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkpycWPxQi4), David St. Hubbins introduces themselves as “Spinal Tap, Mk II.” Except – it’s nowhere near the second lineup of the band, they’ve already had 30+ other members come and go (mostly drummers who died in bizarre circumstances) so they should be Mark XXVII or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2016, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/239 "2016-03-12T21:26:13Z")
Obviously the coming and going of drummers wasn’t considered to change the character of the band. That seems entirely realistic. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2016, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/240 "2016-03-13T08:36:51Z")
Does “please don’t rape my language” count as a “small thing” or not? How difficult is it to find someone who can explain to an actress who’s supposed to have been after a Javier for ten years that Javier is not pronounced gay beer (I don’t expect Spanish pronunciation, specially in the middle of an English-language sentence, but for [María Moliner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Moliner)’s sake, just say Xavier!)? Is there a sudden shortage or Hispanic cleaners in Hollywood? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557.md?page=13)