Easter Wreath Spelling Fail

When you're a humor blogger, sometimes the humor just comes to ewe. This photo of a metal Easter sheep door hanging was taken by me in the dollar store out by Century III mall in Pittsburgh this weekend.

"'Ewe' ready for Eastet?" our wooly friend asks.

And I think:

"Not teally, I haven't enjoyed St. Pattick's Day yet."

Proof-readers, manufacturing people, proof-readers! Embrace them. They're more than just people who condescend to you in paid hourly increments.

Offish and Waisted

Ah, I love home-grown banner ads! The way they have that warm fertilizer smell, and don't burden themselves with the gloss of those suspiciously-perfect, actually-proofread ad company creations.

I love them because then I get to see things go public like this real-and-for-true ad...



He's waisted thousands. And yep, I hear him. It always feels like the thousands go right to the waist, doesn't it? Why, Waist Control Management is rough these days for everybody.

Hey, but it got me thinking what a unique spin this tiny typo can give to a whole lot of things...

• The Who's "Teenage Waistland" turns into the tale of a teen beauty pageant full of girls with eating disorders... (Okay, so, any pageant, then.)

• "Elegantly Waisted" by INXS becomes Michael Hutchence's obsession with a high society ab cruncher...

• And Snoop Dogg's "Waist of Time" relays the story of Snoop's relationship with a slim, female Doctor Who. (Spoilers: it doesn't work out.)

Ah, but our writer of the banner ad isn't talking about dieting, is he? No, he's waisted his thousands on Adwords until he started making money in "3 week." But, he reveals, he doesn't even have a web site!

Um... dude, if you're spending money placing ads on sites that aren't yours? This could very well be the reason you weren't initially seeing the profits. Just tossin' that out there. Next time try placing the ads on a site you own.

I know, business gets confusing that way.

Well, it was about the time I spied our friend with the thick waist, that I found another friend-- Markus, here...


...Markus is "Plentyoffish.com" Which might explain why he's saying how "being single gets kind of old after a while." Girls don't like guys who are plenty offish. They like guys who seem a little interested.

Okay, okay, I know it's Plenty of Fish... I'm just giving Markus a hard time because of his URL, the fact that he seems to have a strong fear of commas, (but has embraced the semi-colon), and that he's the first man to write a full novel in the space of a banner ad.

I really shouldn't poke fun, though. I myself narrowly ended up with blog title that didn't quite work out in URL form the way I'd hoped.

Yes, you might recall me telling the story of "Angela's Shark." The Blog Eventually Named Cabbages was once "Angela's Shark," after a phrase liberally used in one of my favorite P.G. Wodehouse stories.

I thought it was obscure, eccentric and, as my name is not Angela, humorously confusing. Y'know, like the "Thompson Twins" being comprised of three people.... Or "Brazilian Girls" only having one female member.... Pink Floyd having neither a Pink nor Floyd among them.

That sort of thing.

Only as a URL? With no apostrophe allowed, suddenly it turned into:

www.angelasshark.com

Angel Ass Hark...

Ange Lass Hark...

Angela Ssh Ark...

Groovy! A blog either about a heavenly bootie call, a Christian myth about a talking donkey, the speech of some Scottish girl named Angie, or Mrs. Angela Noah being shooshed while her husband droned on about boat-building and the weather.

Needless to say, adjustments had to be made.

Which has me wondering:

• Did you have other candidates for your blog title before the one you settled on, and if so, what were they?

• And what's your favorite (or least favorite) home-grown banner ad?

(I had found another banner in the past that had me laughing-- you can click here to read about that one, in "Beware the Penquins: and Other Cases for Proofreading".)

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Beware the Penquins and Other Cases for Proofreading

"Benaughty! Rise you potential," the banner ad exclaims.

I've been chuckling over this for a few days now, and felt compelled to share. It hovers over my Statcounter stats in rotation with other less grammatically free-spirited ads.

The first time I saw it, I just caught it out of the corner of my eye. And the message routed itself from eyeball to the brain, where it hung in that big echoing room with all the windmills... And it whispered...

"Rise you potentialllllll...."

Rise me potential? What the-?!... I stopped what I was doing and raised an eyebrow. Or rised it.

But when I looked up, the panel had rotated over to something else. So typical of potential, really. There and gone in the blink of an eye.

Well, the next day, there it was again. "Rise you potential." The brain processed it right away this time.

And do you know how the Benaughty folks think I can rise me potential? By placing hardcore "adult dating" ads on this blog!

Yup, there's a surprise. Gosh, we'll be rising all sorts of things, won't we?

The actual surprise, I'd say, was that their main site appears fairly well proofread-- because, well, with a lead-up like that, I simply had to check it out and see.

And yessir, there weren't any of those pesky typos detracting from their offer of big money for connecting beloved readers with buxom Scandinavian hotties who are, in all likelihood, sweaty men with comb-overs who answer to the name of "the Dwayne-meister."

(The sweaty men answer to "Dwayne-meister"... not the comb-overs. Just so we're clear.)

So I actually started to feel a little sorry for the Benaughty people. I mean, here they are, wanting to lure in potential potential-risers. And instead they're probably getting a bunch of amused marketing writers, rigid schoolmarms, Grammar Nazis, and out-of-work copy editors looking for employment.

Bummer!

I sympathize, you see, because I have not been without my own share of typos. Why just recently, when we were here at Cabbages waiting for Godot, I got "Hooked on Phonics" somewhere along the way and he went all Godoh on us for about three hours. Before I was enlightened to my error.

I'm also reminded of a craft project an acquaintance was working on. This girl-- we'll call her "Stephanie"-- Stephanie had a boyfriend who loved the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team. And so she decided she'd quilt this fine fellow a Penguins-themed blanket for Christmas.

A nifty idea and a gift sure to be appreciated, right?

Well, Stephanie worked long hours on this, crafting it in yellow and black stripes, cutting out each square, each letter, with love and care and nimble fingers...

And then it was complete. Thick, fleecy and beautiful, with lots of hand-done touches, Stephanie finally showcased her work.

"Um... Stephanie?... How do you spell 'penguins'?"

Stephanie's face grew dark. "Er... what?"

"How do you spell 'penguins'?"

"P-E-N-Q-"

"Uhhh.... let me stop you right there, Steph. G."

Stephanie had lost all blood to her head and neck at this point. "Excuse me?"

"It's G. P-E-N-G... U-I-N-S."

She probably would have been better off just quilting, "Go Pens."

So remember, folks--

Whether you're selling money-making schemes involving "hot broads looking for a good time" who are actually B.O.-radiating Dwayne-meisters...

Or whether you're humor blogging about existentialist literature while undercaffeinated...

Or whether you're just trying to create the gift that keeps on giving...

Good proofreading really can be your fiend.

Er... freind. Er...

Beware the Penquins.

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