The 7 Most Disastrous Typos Of All Time
#3.
Bullshit Word Added to the English Language
Because English is a bit of an all-sorts language, you'll find that it includes words from all sorts of crazy places (such as the now-treasured f-word). However, every now and then you will come across a word in the English dictionary whose etymology is not Greek or Latin, but freaking Typo. "Dord", introduced to the world in 1931, is one of those words.
dord, n. [Typo.] Example: "Dord!"
The Typo:
This delightful word first surfaced in the Webster's Third New International Dictionary as a noun in physics and chemistry meaning density. Since then, "dord" enjoyed a happy run throughout the cheerful years known as the 1930s until some editor noticed on February 28, 1939 (yes, we know the exact date) that the word lacked etymology (i.e. a back-story).
Doored.
After an extensive investigation by whom we can only assume were the Grammar Police, it was revealed that "dord" was originally submitted on July 31, 1931 by Austin M. Patterson, Webster's chemistry editor (yes, we know all this information as well), to read "D or d," an abbreviated form of density. But if the letters are squeezed a little too close together...
The Result:
For those of you keeping score, you may be surprised by the vast amount of information we have surrounding this typo right down to the day, month and year. How do we know all this? Simple: Do not screw with the Grammar Police, particularly the English ones.
Grammar Police. Coming soon from the makers of Snatch and Masterpiece Theater.
As for the pronunciation, they clearly pulled that out of their ass.
#2.
The Chilean Ex-Change
When the managing director at the Chilean Mint accidentally allowed a misprinted series of coins to enter circulation, it wasn't something lame nobody would notice, like with the microscopic direction of the corn husks on the flawed Wisconsin state quarter. Similarly, it wasn't something awesome that anybody would have bought him a beer with, like misprinted paper money .
No. In this case, engraver Pedro Urzua Lizana made a mistake in December of 2008 that slipped under the radar of all his superiors, including boss and head of the Chilean Mint Gregorio Iniguez. Under the approval of Lizana, Iniguez, and "several other employees," the Chilean Mint misspelled the name of their own freaking country.
And not in the way you might think.
The Typo:
No, that's not a lowercase L.
The Result:
God only knows how many of these "Chiie" coins were pumped into circulation, since it wasn't until 10 months later that anybody noticed. The whole cabal was sacked for the humiliating oversight, and the Chilean government had no choice but to keep the coins in circulation.
In Gob We Trust.
However, those responsible may be crying all the way to the bank since the coins have since become sick collector's items. Also, when you consider that these were 50-peso pieces that got misprinted (roughly 10 cents each), just a sock-full of these slugs on eBay would be worth more than a dump truck full of pennies.
Pictured: a dump truck full of pennies.
#1.
The Wicked Bible
While it's no secret that the Bible has been subjected to more alterations than Star Wars, one needs look no further than the 1631 reprint of the King James Bible--better known as the Wicked Bible--for all the proof you need that God exists, and that He appears to have a decent sense of humor.
To reprint the King James Bible, royal printers Robert Barker and Martin Lucas had to arrange an exact duplicate of the original book and all its 1,189 chapters, 31,101 verses and 783,137 words like Mahershalalhashbaz just begging to be misspelled.
However, since book printing was on par with individually carving all the parts for an Oldsmobile out of walnut wood, they amazingly eked out only one major typo: a missing word in Exodus 20:14. Unfortunately, that one missing word out of the 783,137 others turned out to be kind of an important one.
"Eh. Close enough."
The Typo:
Yup. "Thou shalt commit adultery."
The Result:
Historians have yet to reach a consensus as to whether the typo is the reason for England's larger than average population of complete bastards. What we do know is that King Charles I ordered the printers be stripped of their business license and fined 300 pounds for their hilarious oversight, or roughly all the money a person back then could make in a freaking lifetime. The King then ordered every existing copy of the offending book to be burned; an order carried out so thoroughly that today only 11 of the books exist.
Making it just slightly rarer than the original, grittier cut of Hop on Pop.
Karma comes around, however, and Charles I eventually became the first sitting king in English history to be put on trial for treason, and subsequently executed. Surprisingly this was not for taking away the country's blank check to commit adultery.
It's amazing they didn't chop his head off three times just for this portrait.
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"England's larger than average population of complete bastards." We might have many bastards, but yours are faaaaar more dangerous per capita.
ReplyOkay this isn't really a typo, but it's still funny as shit. See I'm from South Africa, where Afrikaans is a pretty prominent language. Anyway, NASA has a satellite called the Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite (google it), which in acronym is called POES. See, POES directly translates to the Afrikaans word for C#nt or p***y (for the sake of euphemism). So in essence, NASA has a satellite orbiting the earth which in another language means Pussy. Bad research really.
ReplyFirst of all, talking crap on Superman 64 and Battlefield Earth? It's like you're dumping on my taste in movies and games! But all is forgiven for Arrested Development references.
ReplySecondly, how is accidentally creating a word "dord" more disastrous than having to blow up an 80 million dollar NASA thingy?
Websters is the butchered version of English. If you wan't to know how to spell Colour or Cheque you best buy yourself an Oxford or Collins dictionary....
ReplyWhat about if you want to know whether there's an apostrophe in the word "want?"
Totally saw
Reply#1 coming
Well, the Good Book said it, might as well get to it...
Reply"In Gob we Trust" ftw
ReplyWhat about the Jegus typo?
that bible thing was mentioned in a Neil Gaiman book.
ReplyThere were grammar Nazi's back then, as there will continue to be for a long time...
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesYou dont need an apostrophe on "Nazi" in this case since its a plural, not a possessive......
@Madmax: You, on the other hand, require an apostrophe. You used the possessive form of "it" instead of "it's", the contraction for "it is" (and "it has", as well.)
@madmax: not to mention your missing apostrophe in "don't", which is another contraction.
Oh god, the double irony...
Even the cops need policed!
The devil's bible was the first recorded case of a fired employee pulling a prank on his ex-employers [citation needed] ;)
ReplyAt Iowa State College in the 1930s, a particularly dense person was called a dord.
ReplyNo, he wasn't. I'm totally shitting you.
I guess I don't know enough about corn to understand why an extra chunk of husk is an "error" (I went to the Wisconsin quarter link provided, and while they showed the "error" and the "correct quarter", I don't understand why it's an error in the first place...)
Reply"For our non-mathematically inclined readers, that means the report claimed the vegetable had 10 times its actual amount of iron"
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesWait cracked, you didn't say the amount. Tons of comments keep saying 2.7 mg, is that the typo (meaning it's real value is .27 mg) or the correct one (meaning the typo claimed a completely insane 27 mg)?
Neither. There was no typo. This is a myth that's held currency for a long time because A: it's a valuable lesson in excessive trust of authority and B: some people really fuckin' hate spinach.
Errr... Yes, it WAS a typo. Spinach is NOT that rich in iron. Do a little research, dumbass.
Research what? Spinach has 2.7 mg of iron per 100 g, which is about as much as red meat. You do the research.
The spinach typo story is an urban legend. Google "spinach, iron, and popeye" for a paper on "Ironic lessons from biochemistry and history on the importance of healthy eating, healthy scepticism and adequate citation"
ReplyThe scriptural justification for sati (Hindu widows burning themselves alive on their husband's funeral pyre) is believed to be a misreading of one syllable - yomin (the widow shall go into the home) to yomiagne (the widow shall go into the fire). Untold numbers of women burned alive as a result. Pretty fkn disastrous. I will concede not dazzling comedy material though.
ReplyIf thats true imagine the potential lawsuits of grieving family members.
What I can tell from this thread is that some people REALLY don't like to eat their (iron-rich) spinach.
ReplyI can't say how many times people have told me to eat spinach because popeye ate it and how many times i've said that was all bullshit.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThis article is wrong. Google spinach iron misprint myth.
@TheySaidRepent: I googled. The only thing I could find was that Spinach was chosen for Popeye based on its Vit. A content. I could find nothing to refute the claim that there was a typo in the iron content
Except that the author couldn't find the primary source, the source he found quoted didn't exist in any library, and that every nutritional database agrees with the "inflated" result.
Did you even read beyond the first paragraph?
Nooooo, not Hop on Pop!
ReplyThat was the first book I ever read... *tear*
Irony. You're a lot more likely to get E.Coli from raw spinach than you'd ever get from a medium rare steak. MMMM!
ReplyFalse. If you actually keep a feed of recalls, you'll see a half-dozen or so meat recalls for every vegetable recall; it's just that the latter are the only ones that make the news, since the media is in the pocket of the meat industry.
TheySaidRepent: you completely missed the joke....
Praise God for the Exodus correction! :-)
Replyyou can get "The Wicked Bible" on eBay for $90,000, wth?