My Typo Humour

Errorists

2013-05-17T06:00:00.000+01:00

I have to admit, this is a new one on me. But I like it.

As defined in the Urban Dictionary...

Errorist: A person who is deluded or simply stupid, making mistakes without the intention of ever acknowledging people's corrections. In fact, the common response to such corrections is often an outburst of utter ignorance, hence the play on the word terrorist. Someone who is potentially dangerous in society simply by being ignorant.

Remind you of anyone?

No longer mighty

2013-05-15T06:00:00.000+01:00

In a recent article, Maureen Hayden suggested that teachers and parents fear that the digital age is putting the art of handwriting at risk.

This is how the article appeared on thedailystar.com.

That may well be true but it looks like the digital guys still have a lot to learn before they fully master their keyboards.

Because this is how the headline appeared on the mobile version.

I don't know so much.

It seems like a pretty mighty cock-up to me.

Eating on the job

2013-05-13T06:00:00.000+01:00

Thanks very much to Keith-Marc Bradford who emailed his story to peter at mytypohumour dot com.

I had a brochure to translate for a very high-class hotel in a chateau on the Loire.

'Don't worry about proof-reading it, they said, 'the owner speaks very good English and in any case, your translation will go straight for printing, untouched by human hand. They hadn't bargained for it being touched by computer, reset into narrow columns, and for the fact that the 'logical' French rules for hyphenation differ from the pragmatic English ones.

This is what they wrote:

'Vous pouvez déjeuner sur la terrace avec vue sur la vallée.'

And this is what I translated:

'You can have lunch on the terrace looking over the valley.'

But this is what was printed:

'You can have lunch on the terrace loo-
king over the valley.'

Collapse of their elegant image!

Keith-Marc Bradford
Excel Language Services
Lankerouet
F-22420 Plouzélambre
France

Going overboard

2013-05-10T06:00:00.000+01:00

On a recent visit to The Tall Ship at Glasgow's Riverside, Tom L and Ellie J spent half their time worrying about where they could go.

See their dilemma? What about... well, you know?

OK then, they decided. Overboard it was.

Well, as I said, they were on edge.

If 6 Was 9

2013-05-08T06:00:00.000+01:00

Now if 6 turned out to be 9, like Jimi Hendrix, I don't mind.

I don't mind.

Many Irish Lotto players probably don't mind either. And who can blame them?

See the ball on the right? The Number 9 ball, drawn six times since January?

It was called out as a Number 6 last month.

Why?

Because, as well as the eleven 9s it has printed on it, it has a 6 printed on it too. Or, more likely, one of the 9s has been overlined rather than underlined, thus making it read as a 6. (Is overlined an actual word, by the way?)

Ireland's National Lotttery has done the right thing though. At a cost of around €54,000, it's paying out in both cases. So, whether you had a 6 or a 9 in your numbers, you'll win the same amount.

So, nothing to worry about. In fact, using Jimi's words again...

Play on, drummer.

Major disruption

2013-05-06T06:00:00.000+01:00

I'm all for long-term planning but this seems to take things a little too far.

The sign was reported by CBS New York which went on to reassure the citizens of the Upper East Side that the work on the new Second Avenue Subway project is scheduled to finish in 2016.

Not bad going.

That's 997 years early.

University Centre Peterborough

2013-05-03T06:00:00.000+01:00

Yes, I know. It's quite the oxymoron.

But, more important than that, Jon C has been playing detective. And a very good fist he's made of it, too.

Here's a poster that's being displayed in and around Peterborough advertising University Centre Peterborough which is an offshoot of Cambridge's Anglia Ruskin University.

(Hey, how's this for a new parlour game? Try and come up with the most unlikely sounding name and location for a University.)

Now, like Jon, anyone from Peterborough will know that there is nowhere in that otherwise fair city that looks remotely like this and he suspected that the photo had been taken somewhere else.

So he donned his deerstalker and dug around a bit.

Very quickly a search in Google images unearthed the photo in a German image library and Jon sought out the photographer, Tyler Olson, a Norwegian currently living in Canada.

Tyler assured Jon that the photo had been taken on a University campus. But not in Peterborough. Not even at Anglia Ruskin or Cambridge. But at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada.

That's over 4,000 miles and 8 time zones away from Peterborough.

I'm sorry, good citizens of Peterborough, but that's about as far away from Peterborough as the thought of a University in your city.

Good on you, though, for trying.

But surely there are some equally pleasant places of your own that you could have shown?

Fowl play

2013-05-01T06:00:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Sarah Townsend for tweeting this one @STEcopywriting.

She doesn't say where they were on sale but I think someone's missing a trick here.

You could ship them over to Bridlington on the Yorkshire coast and sell them as souvenirs, thereby killing two brids with one stone.

No one would be any the wiser.

And yes, they certainly look tacky enough for the Brid market.

Super Buy

2013-04-29T06:00:00.001+01:00

Were you one of the lucky ones who picked up a bargain from Macy's last month?

Instead of being offered at $479, a $1500 necklace was advertised in a mailer at just $47.

But you had to be quick.

One customer in Plano, Texas queued at his local shop in Collin Creek Mall only to see the person in front of him buy up its entire stock.

Apparently, the company could offer no explanation as to how the mistake was made.

Perhaps I can help out here, Macy's.

You didn't read your proof properly.

Simple.

Spice Girl

2013-04-26T06:00:00.000+01:00

Here's one from Dennis A.

I'm not sure where he saw it.

I'm not even sure it wasn't Dennis who arranged it.

It was clearly someone who enjoys stimulating conversation.

UWAGA!

2013-04-24T06:00:00.000+01:00

Eagle-eyed Jon C came across this British Transport Police poster displayed at Peterborough railway station.

A quick look on Google Translate tells me that Uwaga! is Polish for Attention! and the poster is warning against crossing the railway lines.

I'm not sure why the Poles are being singled out. Surely they don't all come from the wrong side of the tracks.

Anyway, on closer inspection the picture is doing nothing to avoid confusion amongst our Polish friends.

Welcome to BTP's Mirror World.

Do you have it?

2013-04-22T06:00:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Jon C who sent me this photo of a window display promoting the G.I. Joe: Retaliation 3D film which was posted on Twitter by @john_oates.

Hello, John. Presumably that's your reflection we can see in the window.

G.I. Joe might have what it takes.

But clearly, whoever approved the display doesn't.

T-shirt analogy

2013-04-19T06:00:00.000+01:00

Yet another from Dennis A who posted this on the My Typo Humour Facebook Page.

Thanks, Dennis.

I'll probably stick to just drinking in the pub I think.

Bottoms Up!

Stashed

2013-04-17T06:00:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Dennis A for finding this one.

Well, you never know when it might come in...

Protecting Quo's status

2013-04-15T06:00:00.002+01:00

Thanks to Dennis A for sending this one in via the Facebook Page.

In its excitement to reveal an ever-growing number of impressive acts booked to appear at the new Leeds Arena, the Yorkshire Evening Post fails to give one of them the recognition it deserves.

Er, make that 100 million record sales, YEP. That more than justifies the rack you mention.

Whereas 100; well that number would hardly make a peg.

Or two.

Down which your proofreading capabilities should be taken.

Under the influence

2013-04-12T06:00:00.000+01:00

I'm delighted that the Peterborough branch of the MTH typo-spotting crew is growing.

Today we welcome Marion H who has sent in what must be the world's first hieroglyphic instruction leaflet.

In fact, it's an addendum to the instructions for a halogen oven which suggests that it's correcting some errors in the original instructions.

Well, if these are the corrections, I'd hate to see what the original looks like.

Honestly, I don't know where to start. So I won't.

But we can surely take a great deal of reassurance from the fact that the leaflet carries the green Quality Control Pass sticker. It's a sign of a fantastic quality standard.

Yes, fantastic.

I do notice, however, that someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to ensure that the last sentence is the clearest part of the whole document.

Yes, that one. The sentence that declares the blindingly obvious instruction: that 'the part marked BOTTOM must be on the underside of the glass bowl.' Good thing that we can read that one clearly. Otherwise who'd have guessed?

Incidentally, I read that Team UKI is yet another of those companies whose aim (according to its web site) is 'to provide the best of service, quality and value'.

I'm wondering if that means it's offering a choice between the three? And, in which one of them it feels it has achieved that aim with this leaflet.

I guess the document has been written by a Halogenic Oven Specialist.

But it reads as though it's been written by a Hallucinogenic Oven Specialist.

Irish strike gold

2013-04-10T06:00:00.001+01:00

Published in yesterday's The Journal.

You couldn't make it up.

It's not clear whether it was an air strike, a lightning strike or a shillelagh strike.

But that's the Irish for you.

Bless 'em.

BBC rhyming slang

2013-04-08T06:00:00.000+01:00

As tweeted by @MrRandomSilly the other day, someone at BBC News will be in trouble.

I don't know why though.

Whoever wrote it was just saying what the rest of us already think about Bankers and their standards.

As if life isn't hard enough

2013-04-05T06:00:00.000+01:00

Thanks are due to Clive Eaton who shared this photo on Twitter @CliveEaton..

Spotted in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire.

An irritating inconvenience. That's the entry for 'hassle' in my dictionary.

Clearly written with solicitors in mind.

Meanwhile, this from the company's About Us page on its website.

Blah, blah. Yeah, yeah. Shame your 'all-round skill-set' doesn't extend to typing correctly.
"

Oh, and this from the weekly WH update simply confirms those skill-set shortcomings.

Eh? Laywers? Affrodable? City of global firms?

Now that is irritating.

Oh Mr Woo

2013-04-03T06:00:00.000+01:00

Uncovered in Washington, DC.

Missed it?

I'm not surprised. It's not that crear.

Bank Holiday Punday

2013-04-01T06:00:00.000+01:00

The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference who acquired his size from too much pi.

I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it was an optical Aleutian.

She was only the whisky maker's daughter, but he loved her still.

A catapult was confiscated in an algebra class as it was a weapon of maths disruption.

The butcher backed into his bacon slicer and got a little behind with his orders.

No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.

A dog gave birth to puppies in the street and was arrested for littering.

A grenade thrown into a French kitchen would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

Atheism is a non-prophet organisation.

Two hats hanging on a hat rack. One says to the other, 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.'

A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

A backward poet writes inverse.

Crap advice

2013-03-29T06:00:00.003Z

This cover of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Living section was featured in AdWeek.

Well, I guess suit happens.

On the mat again

2013-03-27T06:00:00.000Z

Ah, 'Quality' Mats. Welcome back.

I see you've not returned to apologise for your last gaffe. In fact, you've brought even more with you this time.

Well, your five seconds is now up and, without doubt, you've made 'a lasting statement'.

With the unnecessary capital letters and incorrect punctuation marks (or lack of any punctuation marks) there are no less than fourteen errors in your first sentence.

Which, actually, should be two sentences.

Oh, and it's whose, not who's. Nor even whos.

You're welcome.

Closed caption

2013-03-25T06:00:00.000Z

The recent bad weather has had a serious effect on West Yorkshire's road system.

According to the BBC, it appears that the A635 has turned into a very long road leading from Last Of The Summer Wine country directly to the little-known tiny Welsh hamlet of Clsoed.

Extreme necking

2013-03-22T06:00:00.000Z

The great thing about reading rather than, say, watching TV is that it allows you to use your imagination.

And who better to fire it than Stephen King?

Aagh! Out, damned imagination! Out I say!

It wouldn't be so bad, but... locked? Sounds like a wrestling position.

Oh, there you go...

Anyway, it must be a really perverted spell checker, or at least one with a questionable history, which thinks that that word is a suitable replacement for arms.

Meanwhile I'm wondering how he managed to peek.