Comments on: Typos

By: C.R. Boone

C.R. Boone — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 16:28:04 +0000

I'm late reading this post, but there was a typo that made the news today. A construction worker misspelled school when painting a school zone in North Carolina.

By: Suzi McGowen

Suzi McGowen — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:19:25 +0000

My favorite has always been from the menu "May I Take Your Order" on Rahoi.com They seem to serve a lot of cowboy leg.

I can figure what they're trying to sell on most of the other ones, but I just can't figure out what cowboy leg was supposed to be.

http://www.rahoi.com/2006/03/may-i-take-your-order/

By: Tricia

Tricia — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 12:23:40 +0000

I lived in Thailand for awhile. I spoke passable Thai and could read on perhaps a 2nd grade level, but could not write Thai script to save my life. However this did not stop me from enjoying their engrish. I collected envelopes w/ funny things written on them. Here are a few.

Highly pleasing or enjoyable a lovely time someone who loves a specitied

At some unspecified point of time. pernominal having been at one time former the sometime president.

From far up, ringing from peak to peak of the summits over us, came a cry of such unatterable and ecstatic joy that it sounds down across the years.

Stay in tough

stamp hear

Hello! What did you fun yesterday?

Jessica, thanks for the great post.

By: N. Clifford Henderson

N. Clifford Henderson — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 10:52:05 +0000

As a college history professor, I get numerous mistakes on exams. At least once a semester I have someone writing about the king's thrown room. I also have students who use the wrong denomination: The Great Wall of China is 1400 feet long. My pet peeve is the mixing up of Calvary and Cavalry. Calvary has nothing to do with soldiers on horseback.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 23:53:23 +0000

A substitute teacher once proclaimed to my entire fifth grade class, "'Shall be' ain't no word."

The phrase is burned in my brain.

By: Katie

Katie — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 23:32:06 +0000

I used to collect grammar errors and misspellings. Then I became a newsletter editor and realized that sometimes no matter how hard you look, errors still seep in. That doesn't make proof reading worthless. I often have to reread entire sentences if the wrong "their/ there/ they're" is used.

If you're using PC there's a great (free!) program called WordWeb Pro that's a lot like a dictionary. Except you have to notice your spelling looks wrong first because there's no red-line like Word uses.

<>< Katie

By: tswelti

tswelti — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 21:24:22 +0000

You may want to switch your email editor to Microsoft Word and switch on your spelling/grammar check. That should fix it.

By: Kristin Laughtin

Kristin Laughtin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 20:45:42 +0000

Aww, somebody already recommended engrish.com, but I'll second it if you giggle at poorly translated English.

I remember a restaurant in Hawaii called "Fook Yoo" or something along those lines. I was young then, so of course immature little me got a kick out of it.

When it comes to (native) English speakers making mistakes, misplaced apostrophes always stand out to me, as do commonly confused words, like (as you said) affect/effect, bare/bear, etc. They're everywhere! I also often find myself accidentally typing semicolons instead of apostrophes, and frequently switching two letters in my first name.

By: V. C. Ford

V. C. Ford — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:55:19 +0000

I live in the very French region in Canada, so I'm often corrected when I speak the local language. I'm fine with that, since I'll be the first one in line to help someone else with my maternal tongue. However, one irksome issue I have with living here is the misuse of English-isms.

Phrases like "full-cool!" and "pissé" are often blurted out not just by the youth but even adults. They mean, respectively, "that's awesome!" or "pissed."

Or another one, which as an anglophone I take offense to, is the word "fucké." Yeah, you saw that accent correctly. It has become a widely used verb up here for those silly francophones. It basically means screwed up, messed up, tired, stoned, etc. It's used in every day expressions.

I've been here eleven years and I still can't get used to it.

By: Vincent Kale

Vincent Kale — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:47:03 +0000

If you want a good laugh at attempted English, go to www.engrish.com

Some of my favorites from personal experience were instructions on installing car headlights:

"Do not stand naked in front of light or the eye will be burn."
"If the or so light is not so bright at the same time or flicker may be because of power supply power famine."

And my personal favorite (which I still can't figure out):
THE SWEET OF SIMON HINT!
For the safety of you and the life of the others safety , please the reasonable usage light!