spelling

reesetee Or something. May 20, 2009

chained_bear Uhh... I found a pretty good example of bad spelling here. Now there's a guy who needs a copyeditor. May 20, 2009

reesetee Qroqqa, they laid off all of my company's copyeditors last fall, and guess what? Since then, every manuscript we've received has been perfect!

*extremely heavy sarcasm* May 20, 2009

bilby Joel's chalet. May 20, 2009

chained_bear May I just say, on your behalf, "J***s Ch***t." May 20, 2009

qroqqa *hands up* I have just come from drinkiepoos with our team of copy editors, all of whom have been laid off today. Apparently the idea is all the writers will write perfect English from the start and all I have to do is proof-read it. May 20, 2009

chained_bear They're all being laid off, it seems, because people (who usually cannot, themselves, spell) think they're unnecessary. May 19, 2009

rolig Gosh, remember when there used to be copy-editors? May 19, 2009

chained_bear Thanks, skip.

I think that's one of the best misspellings I've heard of lately. May 19, 2009

skipvia Cats' eyes and star sapphires, si. May 19, 2009

sionnach Isn't chatoyance what cats' eyes do? Or am I thinking about foudroyance? Or maybe food-roints?

Is very confused. May 19, 2009

chained_bear Brackets on shitoyance please! I have just the list for it! May 19, 2009

skipvia "Gorgeous Italian Spruce top with bearclaw figure that exhibits a brilliant shitoyance when turned in the light." Martin Music.

I think he means chatoyance, but maybe the guitar just looks like...ummm...crap. May 19, 2009

skipvia Perhaps this guy should switch to a language with words that aren't so difficult to spell. Oct 8, 2008

jennarenn oroboros, that is a darling poem! I love the site as well. :) Jul 22, 2008

skipvia Sadly ironic video in which Fox News misspells the word "education" during its newscast. Jul 22, 2008

oroboros I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead -
For goodness sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose -
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd mastered it when I was five!

--Quoted by Vivian Cook and Melvin Bragg 2004,
by Richard Krogh, in D Bolinger & D A Sears, Aspects of Language, 1981,and in Spelling Progress Bulletin March 1961, Brush up on your English.

More here. Jun 17, 2008

pterodactyl Maybe it's creator was having a bad day. Jun 12, 2008

reesetee Maybe it was printed by one of the local's. Jun 12, 2008

skipvia Sign, professionally printed, in the Payless Rental Car return lane at the Denver airport:

Please leave "keys" in the car.

You know--keys. *wink wink nudge nudge*

I don't get it... Jun 12, 2008

reesetee Sounds as though you're experiencing a stage of Wordie addiction. ;-) Jan 10, 2008

mollusque Anti-batrachian has led me to a lamentable word: antimollusque, a French panvocalic describing the action of a molluscicide, which itself has the variant spelling *shudder* molluscacide, also panvocalic. *Can't resist...must list...Arrgh.* Jan 10, 2008

reesetee I just don't want to think about the anti-batrachian version. Too squishy. Jan 10, 2008

yarb Ha ha. Depends how you interpret "get", rt. I like your reading though. Free toad for those forced to park on the grass. Jan 10, 2008

reesetee I would think it would be pro-batrachian, no? Jan 10, 2008

chained_bear That is my new favorite comment ever. Jan 10, 2008

sionnach To be fair, the sign that says "Park on Grass. Get toad" could be a correctly spelled incitement to anti-batrachian action. Jan 10, 2008

skipvia This may be opening old wounds, but check here for a mind-muddling orgy of misspellings and strange grammatical twists (including the ever-popular "random" use of "quotes"). Jan 10, 2008

reesetee That is truly an excellent visual. We're doomed to giggle at air quotes from now on. :-) Oct 25, 2007

trivet What the bear said. *snicker* Oct 25, 2007

chained_bear Oh great. Now I'm going to giggle EVERY TIME someone uses air quotes! The mental image of bats trying to climb a glass wall is going to make me use them. Agh! Oct 25, 2007

skipvia Using quotes when they're "not needed" is bad, but even worse is when a speaker makes air quotes. They look like bats trying to climb a glass wall. Oct 25, 2007

chained_bear Ha! That's a "great" site! ;) Oct 23, 2007

uselessness In that case, you'll "love" the Gallery of "Misused" Quotation Marks. ;-) Oct 22, 2007

chained_bear Or, like the sign I saw the other day:

Lost "Keys"
Please return to... (etc.)

Perhaps the author really did mean that the misplaced object masquerades as keys. AGH!

Skipv, one of my (least) favorites is similar to your example, but mixes up the cases entirely: "I can't believe he did that to her and I." STABBY!! STABBY STABBY!! Oct 22, 2007

reesetee Or "Myself and Bob decided not to go." *shudder* Oct 22, 2007

skipvia On the nosey, U. It's the same phenomenon that we experience when people say "Bruce was really mean to she and I," but that's another story... Oct 22, 2007

uselessness I have to wonder about people who go out of their way to insert unnecessary punctuation. It's easier to type your than you're! It's easier to type locals than local's! It's a two-for-one deal: save yourself the trouble of typing extra characters, AND get the added bonus of being correct. Who wouldn't want that?

A frightened part of me suspects that these people assume using more letters and punctuation marks equals being more grammatically intelligent. Like refusing to acknowledge that its really is the possessive form of it, because it's not as "complete" as it could be. Oct 22, 2007

reesetee And the famous "Woman, without her man, is nothing." Changed to "Woman: Without her, man is nothing." :-) Oct 22, 2007

chained_bear That reminds me of a story (possibly apocryphal) about the wife of Peter the Great (or was it Ivan the Terrible...?) who had a merciful streak as well as being more literate than her husband. She intercepted a note from the emperor to one of his officers about the fate of a man who was imprisoned. The note supposedly said: "Pardon impossible. To be sent to Siberia."

Allegedly the woman changed the punctuation to read: "Pardon, impossible to be sent to Siberia." And the man's life was saved.

I don't really know or care how true it is. I just thought the use of punctuation to change the meaning was interesting. Oct 22, 2007

reesetee Wait. What if we rearranged the punctuation?

"Support! You're Locals." Oct 22, 2007

skipvia It's also surprisingly difficult to read, isn't it? Oct 22, 2007

chained_bear OUCH! That hurts my head! Oct 22, 2007

skipvia Suport You're Local's!

I saw this handwritten sign in a window a few days ago. The "local's" referred to are local craft makers. I like it because every word is either misspelled or grammatically incorrect. Oct 22, 2007