I received this in a letter from my local utility company who was scheduled to do some work in my neighborhood. Again, “preform” is actually a word and not something that spell check will catch, but I’m pretty sure they meant “perform” maintenance. That is why it is important to actually read your work to make sure it says what it is supposed to say.
I took this picture at a recent restaurant visit. I forgive the missing “i” in “Hiring” only because it looks like it slid down to the line below and the “h” is about to follow, but the misspelled version of “Servers” is too much for me. There are so many resources available that if you ever have a doubt whether a word is spelled correctly, look it up. You can go to dictionary.com and check there or just type the word into Google. It will only take a few seconds, but will give you the satisfaction of knowing your work is correct.
This was an ad I recently received in the mail. It looks to me like this is an example of your brain knowing what it is supposed to say and tricking your eyes into seeing it that way. It might be better to have someone else look at it before it goes to press. If the three people mentioned in the ad all looked at it and didn’t see it, they need to slow down and really read it. Avoiding errors takes a little bit of extra time, but it is time well spent.
I saw this in a catalog I received. While I would definitely use the second one for wine, since the page before uses the same description on a typical wine glass, I’m just saying that someone missed this in the review. When you’re proofreading, you need to read everything in that document (or catalog) as a whole paying attention to whether the photos go with the words, whether all the words are spelled correctly, and whether it all makes sense. I’m bringing it up today just to make you laugh. I know mistakes happen (goodness knows I’ve made more than my fair share), but sometimes all we can do is laugh and learn. And perhaps we’ll start a new trend with a new kind of wine glass!
I received this email recently. Obviously, when the header has multiple errors, it is not from Chase bank. Also obviously, the link in the email is NOT to Chase.com. I know that because I hovered over the link to see where the link went and it was a string of letters and numbers. I guess I should be grateful that the mistakes saved me time in reading the entire email.
A friend recently rode in an Uber that had this on the back of the seat in front of him for his use. While I appreciate the thoughtfulness that goes into making your passengers comfortable during their ride, the wrong word was used. They are confusing, so we’re going to explore the differences:
In this example, the use of the charger was free and while I suppose it could complete or make better a day going bad because your phone was dead, I think the intent was that charging was free while you were in the Uber vehicle.
A friend sent this one to me and it recently appeared on Reddit, but I thought it was interesting to show that even if everything is spelled correctly, sometimes placement is an issue. You need to try to look at your writing as a whole to make sure that all the parts of it are correct.
A friend sent me a part of this description she saw while looking for a sun visor. I checked and was able to find the full ad and there were so many errors. I assume English is not the ad writer’s first language, but you can see how important clear writing is to understanding what it is they are trying to say. It is the same for your writing. And at least the seller has a good legal team!
A reader sent this to me. It was a sponsored ad on Facebook. I have removed identifying information. It was correct in the headline, but incorrect in the actual body of the ad.
This looks like it was one of those “I know what it is supposed to say” problems–where you skip over words that are misspelled because your brain knows that it is supposed to be even though your eyes could see something different. That can happen when you’ve read it too many times, you are going too fast, or you didn’t proofread it at all because the spell checker didn’t show any mistakes. Slow down and actually read the email, the letter, the pleading, or the ad before it is published or sent off.
My daughter sent this to me from her local grocery store. It just makes me laugh–especially working in the legal field. I’m sure they mean “caramelized” onion relish since that’s what it says in the description of the sandwich, but I’m not sure how it got to be “criminalized” onion relish in the name of the sandwich. Perhaps they were listening to a true crime podcast or streaming episodes of Snapped while they were working and got distracted.
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