<p>One of our students wrote an essay on a book and referred to the author as the winner of the Pull-It-Suprise.</p>
<p>I had a student write how much she enjoyed learing about the Dolly Lamma.</p>
<p>^LMAO! thats classic</p>
<p>I am continually amazed by the stupidity I see every day… So yes, people really can be that stupid.</p>
<p>Owed to a Spell Chequer</p>
<pre><code> I halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plane lee marques four my revue
Miss steaks aye ken knot sea
Eye ran this poem threw it
Your sure reel glad two no
It's vary polished in it's weigh
My chequer tolled me sew
A chequer is a bless sing
It freeze yew lodes of thyme
It helps me awl stiles two reed
And aides mi when aye rime
To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud
And wee mussed dew the best wee can
Sew flaws are knot aloud
And now bee cause my spelling
is checked with such grate flare
Their are know faults with in my cite
Of nun eye am a wear
Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed to be a joule
The chequer poured o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule
That's why aye brake in two averse
My righting wants too pleas
Sow now ewe sea wye aye dew prays
Such soft wear for pea seas
</code></pre>
<p>Sauce unknown</p>
<p>Richard Lederer, who taught at St. Paul’s School, wrote several books on language. The two I have are ‘Anquished English’ and ‘Crazy English’. I think the Pullet Surprise is in one of those books, along with a history of the world gleaned from papers submitted by his students.</p>
<p>A few years ago a Very Smart Kid in my son’s class wrote an article in our local paper about someone who was going to Brandies University.</p>
<p>The word “Brandies” must have been in the article 15 times, including the headline. It was appalling.</p>
<p>(And for those of you too embarrassed to ask: It’s Brandeis.)</p>
<p>When we were at a college fair with a rep from Brandeis, he made a point to tell the students to make sure they don’t send out a generic essay that ends ‘and that’s why I want to go to Yale’. </p>
<p>Apparently Brandies don’t get no respect…</p>
<p>I didn’t know Brandies were the mascot for Brandeis.</p>
<p>Toblin. I love that poem. I had to read it very carefully, though, and OUT LOUD to get it all correct. How funny! :)</p>
<p>I have a friend who works for an Hispanic ad agency and I told her I was sick and tired of the errors that I saw in advertising. She said that they were there on purpose, so we would remember the ad. GRRRRRRRR. (“cited”) Also, I teach Spanish. I tell the kids NOT to use the online translator, but do they listen? I tell them that I know when they use it. The don’t believe me. Well, a Spanish I sentence was “Yo mosca a Paris.” (I "house"fly to Paris.) Groan!!!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not mime. Just a copy and pastie.</p>
<p>My daughter says obvi, jk, and probs in her daily speech with me, but I don’t think she’d speak that way in a formal interview. </p>
<p>And we all know what omg and *** mean.</p>
<p>Doesn’t the FAA air on the side of safety? :)</p>
<p>I’ve seen a surprising number of typos in major newspapers of record before… perhaps with today’s instant publication via the paper’s websites they don’t proof some stories like they used to whey they had to set each letter individually by hand on the press ;-)</p>
<p>It’s not only Americans who lament the effect of texting. Sarkozy has just inveigled against its deleterious effect on the French language.
JTM: I love you.</p>
<p>Mallomar:</p>
<p>Sometimes the FAA issues instructions in air-er.</p>
<p>I can see all the punsters coming out of the woodwork here. As in, to air is human… :)</p>
<p>rocketman, I’m sure that has something to do with it, but lots of these mistakes aren’t typos, they are using the wrong word(s). In the ‘air on the side of safety’ quote, that sentence just doesn’t make any sense! I know sometimes my kids will ask me what a oft-used expression means, and they have a word wrong, and once they get it right - WOW - the lightbulb goes off. But how a reporter can write a sentence that DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING is astounding. </p>
<p>And as I said, when I was writing (five years ago or so), my editor would never ever let something like that slide by. Of course, on a few occasions I DID have editors who changed my work for the worse, too, but they never changed a coherent sentence to an incoherent sentence.</p>
<p>I love to watch the “headline news” or whatever it’s called on Jay Leno’s Tonight show. There are a million misprints or poorly constructed sentences and headlines that are hysterical. I had a patient who was a copy editor for a local newspaper. Sadly, he had cancer and he wasn’t at his best. He couldn’t keep up with the pace of the job. However, his boss still expected him to, and until he finally was given a transfer to a different position (wasn’t yet needing to pursue disability) some mistakes got by him. It happens. I proof my reports pretty carefully but stuff still gets by that I didn’t catch. Recently my transcription typed the medicine Aciphex as Assefex! It got by me! Oops!</p>
<p>One time, the transcript of someone’s speech read “marital arts” for “martial arts.” Those who knew the author said that, for him, the two were interchangeable.</p>
<p>Just for the record, I am Stowmom’s “D”, as she says. </p>
<p>When I was in high school, our school newspaper editor wrote an article claiming penguins were mammals. I printed out two articles: one defining mammals, and one defining penguins as birds. I left them on her desk in AP English, and she told the teacher someone must have left them there by mistake. I was rather peeved.</p>