Remember those little storage boxes shaped like books that were popular a few years ago? I’m not making fun of them, mind you (have one myself), but I once saw one whose title was “Jane Eyer.” So not only was it a fake book presumably designed to make its owner appear well read, but this was a misspelled fake book. That name still makes me giggle, because I always want to picture this alternate Jane as a be-monocled female Mad-Eye Moody. Or maybe a female Sherlock Holmes complete with magnifying glass.
I thought of that this week because my daughter and I went to see the newest Jane Eyre movie. I hadn’t read the book until college, but she recently read it in high school. So when we discovered that the movie was still playing at a theatre across town, we went for it.
It was playing in the wealthy part of town. The very wealthy, old-money part. The perky girl who sold us tickets also sold concessions. Would we care for a nosh? The gelato was delicious! And for drinks, might she recommend an “Arnold Palmer?”
My daughter and I exchanged looks that said, “No guzzling of Slushies and Whoppers and greasy popcorn tubs here! They nosh! On gelato and mysterious drinks with cocktail names!!! Golfer cocktails!!!”
As we settled in the very back of the small theatre with our noshes, I realized there was nothing but a sea of white hair ahead of us. Not only was my daughter obviously the youngest person in there, I was probably second youngest. And they didn’t talk before the movie, let alone during. Also, no one had bothered to take our tickets. In fact, there was no security whatsoever. Who keeps people from sneaking in? Then we realized: There is no such thing as gangs of hoodlums waiting to sneak into Jane Eyre!!
What an amazing experience. The movie, of course, was wonderful. How could it not be, in a peaceful, cool theatre on a hot summer afternoon where we were so thoroughly tucked away from the real world beneath this cushy-thick layer of delightfulness?
Anyway. In honor of Jane Eyre and all of those white haired gangs of ladies who viewed her movie with us (The Jane-Eyers?), this week’s question will be only ever so slightly improper:
Have you run across any fun misspellings lately?
I've seen 'prolly' quite a few times - due to mispronunciation, probably and 'then' for 'than', again because of pronunciation/regional accent. I also have a coaster with 'Seasons of mists and fruitfulness' - it irritates me every time I see it.
ReplyDeleteFunny you should ask — I'm re-reading Jane Eyre for the forty-eleventh time, but for the first time on my eBook reader.
ReplyDeleteOf course, like all old books, it has been scanned in for this purpose. It is full of errors caused by the scanner being unable to make out individual letters for whatever reason: the old letterpress type may have been unevenly worn, or broken; the ink may have been worn off the page; the page may have been dirty, or have been wet at one time.
When less-than-perfect books are scanned, the result is not only also less than perfect, it is sometimes less than English.
— K
Kay, Alberta, Canada
An Unfittie's Guide to Adventurous Travel
Why, yes, I have! Funny you should ask, Tammy. That's why we have Spell Check. The funniest that I saw wasn't actually a mis-spelling, but a dropped letter from a sign. It was in Atlanta, and the sign read "Pu bic Library".
ReplyDeleteWhat a timely post you have, my dear. I keep a list of misspellings until I find a way to use them. Now I can share that treat with your readers: bafoons for buffoons, gertile for girdle, and my personal favorite, viscous for vicious. As in, "...attacking Weiner like viscous dogs."
ReplyDeleteSo were the ice cubes shaped like golf balls? (LOL) Actually I saw a road sign on the news which read "NOTRH," I guess it was joke on the GPS challenged.
ReplyDeleteSorry I'm late I try to stay unplugged on the weekends.
Jules @ Trying To Get Over The Rainbow
My favorite road sign is on the way to Lookout Mountain in Tennessee. It is for a cafe/gas station. It says, "Eat here and get gas." I did, and I did.
ReplyDeleteYou guys make my Monday. I'm still giggling about pubic libraries and viscous dogs and NOTRH...and that "then" for "than" thing drives me nuts, too! And the gas sign, oh my.... I didn't know that about eBooks. I don't have one, so I guess I didn't realize they're scanned in!
ReplyDeleteWhat? On Blogger?
ReplyDeleteWhat a question, all the time.
if I had known I'd be coming over here to you I'd have kept a tally.
You have an interesting blog. Thanks to Jabblog for helping me find you.
It's not funny, but there was a weigh-station sign on highway 70, east of Hermann, that said, "Busses welcome." It was up for quite a while; it's now gone, I think.
ReplyDeleteThere was a local farmer who advertised "tomatos" every summer. I always threatened to go in the middle of the night and paint an "e" in place. They finally redid the sign, saving me from an almost-certain run-in with the law...
My favorite misspelling was a doozy. A company I used to work for printed bills for a national cellular company. The cell company asked to have a message printed on the bills; our programmer agreed and worked late to get it done. A few days later I received a call (I was the manager of customer service for our branch) from the CEO of the cellular company. His bill had arrived, and instead of declaring his company to be "the most expansive cellular service in the Southeast" our programmer had mistakenly put "the most expensive cellular service in the Southeast." Hahaha! It's funny now. Not so much when I was getting hollered at by an angry exec, or when we had to reprint and mail (at our expense) more than 50,000 invoices. One little letter. . .makes all the difference!
ReplyDeleteFriko, thanks so much for stopping by!
ReplyDeleteSioux, I had to look up the plural of bus. ACK. Guess I shouldn't be doing posts about spelling!
Oh, Lisa! That's a great spelling story!!! :-o