Remember, remember, the month of Septmeber

On second thoughts, let’s not.

Mistakes can be humorous when they happen in other people’s work.

Some of them are ‘smack-your-head’ silly like STOP painted on the road as SOTP, which happens more often than you might think.

September spelled Septmeber?

That’s a very easy mistake to make; two letters typed out of order is only a fumble, of no account if found. But someone at Auckland University made one of those fumbles last month, and it wasn’t found …

In their 2017 end-of-September graduations, the fumble showed up, in ‘only’ about 250 certificates with the month wrongly spelled. And when things aren’t checked, people wish they had been. Proof reader ‘red’ is now likely the colour of the vice-chancellor’s face.

Since the university issues more than 40 times that number of certificates in the course each year, a ‘small’ error in only 250 of them might be shrugged off. You might think it’s not too bad; just one of those things. And, if one of those certificates was handed to you, maybe you’d think it funny and memorable …

The university rapidly reprinted, naturally. Just as well. Most of us wouldn’t want to graduate in a month that doesn’t exist.

And the lesson? There’s plenty of work for proofreaders!