Saturday, November 21, 2020

Watch out for misspellings

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Incorrect spelling in visual aids is not good for a speaker’s credibility. Spelling errors often slip through proofreading.

 

I just saw a hilarious example in an article by Nomaan Merchant at the Associated Press on November 19, 2020 titled Trump’s election lawsuits plagued by elementary errors. It said where they should have referred to ‘poll watchers’ they instead said ‘pole watchers’ - perhaps thinking about customers at a strip club.

 

A second article by Benjamin G. Shatz in For the Defense on February 2007 titled Watch out for tricky typos mentioned lawyer mistakes of statue for statute, pubic for public, trail for trial, and untied for united.

 

A third article at Re:word titled The difference one missed letter makes says in those cases you would get asses for assess, pubic for public, and heroin for heroine.

 

Adding an extra letter also can be awful, as pointed out in a fourth article at The poke on October 14, 2017 titled ‘Best legal typo of all time. Do not stop looking til you find it’ where an extra f changed from ‘assisting’ into ‘assfisting.’ Another article by Stacy Zaretsky at Above the Law on January 10, 2018 called it The most embarrassing typo in a lawyer letter, ever.

 

The image of Miss Pellings was adapted from this photo at the Library of Congress.

 

UPDATE

 

An article at The Hill by Jordan Williams on November 26, 2020 titled Ex-Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell files lawsuits in Michigan, Georgia reported:

 

"Both of the cases filed by Powell were riddled with typographical issues. The case in Michigan had a number of formatting problems that removed spacing between words, Bloomberg reported. In the Georgia suit, the word district was misspelled twice on the first page of the document: There was an extra c for 'DISTRICCT,' and then it was spelled 'DISTRCOICT.' "

   

 

 


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