Numerous typos on a bogus used clothing collection sticker
On Monday morning the sticker shown arrived in my door. It has 3 obvious typos/errors and some other strange stuff too. A long time ago I emailed the email address given (clothescollection@gmail.com) but never got an answer.
The first typo is “gratefull” which should be “grateful“. Then “clothings” should be “clothing“. At the end, “ENCLOSED” should be “ENCLOSE“.
As for errors, “day indicated below” is wrong as the collection day is listed above that sentence.
The “some other countries” bit is amusing – it’s as if they couldn’t be bothered to make up other destination countries. It must be difficult to continually have to make up new text for these stickers. At some stage I expect them to use “yada, yada, yada.”
The lonely “EXPORTED” word, combined with the lack of a full stop at the end of the sentence above it (about not “enclosed (sic) a bag”) made me think that they left out a few words e.g. “of being“. This would make “…your children and pets can be put as risk of being exported”
1 typo and 2 apostrophes, both unnecessary
When I was younger the local supermarket had a noticeboard that people could list items for sale, rooms for rent or services available. My local convenience shop has a noticeboards but it is behind the front door and I doubt that many people see it or even know that it is there. Of course I am a bit strange.
The van and driver ad caught my eye because it offended within 4 words – “Avaiable” is missing the “l” and should be “Available”. The apostrophes in “Kind’s” and “Service’s” are simply wrong.
Maybe van driving is the advertiser’s speciality and not spelling. Or maybe s/he is actually very clever and made deliberate mistakes to stick in the reader’s mind. This approach worked, though my photography skills weren’t good enough to capture the entire phone number.
I always glance at the many flyers that come through the letterbox on a daily basis, to see if they are of use to me, and also to search for typos.
A small catalogue for a hardware supply business arrived last week. It listed products related to home insulation and solar panels so I read through it thoroughly.
At the back of the catalogue was a map to the business, with some nearby landmarks highlighted.
The first typo I noticed was DEIDCATED – which should be Dedicated (swap I and D). Next I saw DAILYMOUNT PARK, which should be Dalymount Park (drop the I), home ground for Bohemian Football Club. Finally, the MATTER HOSPITAL should drop the T to be Mater Hospital.
While three typos is significant, it doesn’t beat the 4 typos on a flyer received last year.
My son and I pick up a lot of litter when we are out and about. Thankfully the amount of litter has been reduced since the local authority installed a bin beside our nearby playground.
Obviously there is still litter around and amongst it we found this gem. My son is too young for Ben 10 (he watches Special Agent Oso, Handy Manny) so I didn’t know this cartoon when we found this litter.
This DVD sleeve has two errors – the first is the printed typo in “The Complete Season Tow” instead of “Two“; the second is the hand written correction “Six DVD Pack” changed to “4 DVD Pack”
Add PM, to be sure to be sure.
One problem with the 12 hour clock is that if AM or PM is omitted or unreadable, you are could be very early or very late for your appointment.
The 24 hour clock eliminates any ambiguity and does so without making the number of characters used any longer. In fact it makes it shorter (01:00 is shorter than 1:00 AM).
In Blanchardstown Centre they want to really, really sure that there is no confusion as to when the on-site creche closes. It doesn’t close at 5:00 PM. It doesn’t close at 17:00. No, it closes at 17:00 PM!
At least the addition of “PM” is shorter than adding “in the morning“
Red cold, blue hot taps reversed
I joined my former college classmates for the early portion of the Jim Finn Stag pub crawl, before everyone got incoherent.
In the third pub, The Hut in Phibsborough, the bathroom had a sign about the incorrectly coloured taps.
The blue tap gives hot water, the red tap is for cold water.
That reversal must really get messy when the clients are drunk.
Why couldn’t the owners either swap the taps, or the feed pipes or even the coloured plastic at the top of the taps.
Ticket machine - Buy not translated
Irish Rail have installed automated ticket machines throughout the network. The interface can be displayed in multiple languages.
One day, while sheltering from the rain at the station, I decided to look at the translated interface. Early in my career I worked in localisation and we checked the translated software displayed and worked correctly when translated.
I checked the German translation to see if all the words fit (because German words are frequently longer than English) and it looked good. French was fine too, but then I noticed something small – the Buy button was not translated! Ouch.
It is surprising that this was noticed (and fixed) during product development.
KFC protecting the enviromental
When I worked in East Point Business Park I noticed that Smoking impacts dexterity, for Oracle employees anyway.
From a recent visit to the Blanchardstown Centre I saw an embarrassing attempt at a “green stance” by KFC. There are a few bins outside the restaurant with a brutal spelling error on them.
The bins say:
Thank You. Protecting the Enviromental (sic) for the next generation
“Enviromental” should be “Environment” – add an ‘a’ and drop the ‘al.’
I normally report issues that I find to the company or organisation responsible. The KFC.ie web site is a single page with no contact links. The KFC.co.uk site only lists a snail mail address.
Bogus clothes collection
We are all very familiar with the bogus used clothes collectors that drive by in the early hours to grab the bags that have been left out in response to their regular never ending leaflet drops.
A recent leaflet for one such collection had the gall to ask people not to put the bags out the night before because
That will help us to get rid of bogus collectors
Pot, kettle, black anyone?
In some respects I am impressed with these bogus collectors – they are relentless in their leaflet drops and the leaflets change each time (same contact info but very different “theme” to the leaflet to try to appeal to get people to donate the clothes).
No More Babys (sic)
Not surprisingly there was quite a reaction to this, with the doctor being investigated and the woman’s grandparents calling her “absolutely irresponsible” and her behaviour “unconscionable“.
The photo here, from the Irish Times, shows a local resident protesting outside the woman’s home. Nice sentiment but poor delivery.
Even now, 8 months later, stories of Octomom provoke a strong reaction.