Everybody makes typos—just remember to proofread your document before publishing it. You never know what misspellings you may find, because sometimes keystrokes conspire to create hilarious expressions such as these:
Anesthetic [Unesthetic] building
Anesthetic (or anaesthetic in British English) is the substance your dentist uses to numb your mouth so you don’t feel pain during a dental procedure. An ugly building is unesthetic.
Suing [Using] the document
Unless the document has broken the law (and some documents do, but it’s better to call the grammar police when that happens), you’re using the document.
Naive [Native] vegetation
Even if the rainforest was probably naïve to believe we would protect it, if you’re not a poet and are just referring to the vegetation that exists naturally in a region, write native vegetation.
Complaint [Compliant] with the EU cookie law
You can file a complaint with EU regulators to complain about the so-called EU cookie law—the directive on privacy and electronic communications. But if you want to tell your website visitors that it complies with a policy, then write that your website is compliant with the policy.
Party-colored [Parti-colored] dog
This one is pretty straightforward. Just imagine parti comes from partial, even if it actually comes from the French partir, meaning “to divide”. A parti-colored dog is usually white with patches of a different color (like a Jack Russell terrier). A party-colored dog is…well, I hope it isn’t, because dyeing a dog’s fur is absurd.
Bottle brush [Bottlebrush] garden
Unless your landscape architect designed an unconventional garden with bottle brushes instead of shrubs, you have a garden with bottlebrush plants. These are shrubs whose flowers resemble a brush for cleaning bottles.
Fine palette [palate]
You can have both a fine palette, if you’re an artist, and a fine palate, if you can also appreciate a gourmet meal.
Related posts:
- The funniest typos of 2017 – Part 1
- The funniest typos of 2017 – Part 2
- And 5 more funny typos (to end the year with a smile)
Last revised on 15 June 2022