Confession: The mispelling (now fixed) in today’s comic got there acciddentaly; it wasn’t another little joke, just hubris striking. “Foreign” is one of those words I mispelled unknowingly for years. I’ve corrected it — on principal I usualy don’t edit comics after the first few minutes they’ve been up, but most of the time I’m around when they do. Due to my weird schedual I was out of touch for the last 14 hours, and came back to find I’d recieved something like 150 “I don’t know if you meant to do this, but …” emails. Oh, well. Its a lession in humillity.
I didn’t consciously notice anything until I got to “schedual”, and then I realised how much my pedddant’s hindbrain had been tickling as I read. It’s like I have spell-check as a permanent low-priority process running somewhere behind and between my earlobes. Trouble is, so many bloggers think informal = clumsy, and don’t bother to check their prose before they launch it upon the intertubes (sorry – *teh* intertubes; my bad), so the process gets throttled back a bit when I’m reading blogs. I’ll remember not to let that happen when I’m reading this one…
‘I’ before ‘E’ except after ‘C’
or when sounded as ‘A’, as in ‘neighbor’ or ‘weigh’.
Albeit, there’s weird words like ‘leisure’ and ‘neither’
(‘foreign’ and ‘counterfeit’ don’t make sense either).
‘Seismic’ and ‘seisure’ and ‘protein’ and ‘height’…
…the rule is quite useless but possibly might
just yet be worth saving with some alteration:
(oops: ‘heir’, ‘their’, and ‘sovereign’… ‘decaffeination’…)
so yes it’s quite simple, as I’m sure you can see:
“‘I’ before ‘E’ when it wants to be!”
[The first 2 lines are from my grade school English textbook. I made up the rest.]
That post made me twitch. I eventually laughed once I realized it was intentional, though it was markedly uncomfortable laughter.
I cownted 9 speling erorrs. How mini did evryone ellse get?
just wanted to say the comic is great, especially todays
And yet! Even with all the spelling errors! WE STILL UNDERSTOOD HIM. Wow. The facility of language.
In other words, language prescriptivists, chill out.
I have to admit that not only did I fail to spot the mistake in the comic, I also completely missed every single error in that post aswell, I’m so proud! I think a lot of the time you see what you expect to see, not what is actually there, I wasn’t expecting mistakes so I didn’t see any. Of course there is also the fact that my spelling is appalling, hooray for spellcheckers!
Actually the typo made a lot of sense.
And was funnier that way. 
Mrak: I ocne raed an aticrle wichh dmonteesartd that minxig up all but the frist and lsat lertets of a wrod did nihontg to atler its radeiblitay.
You really should have spelled Grammar as [incorrectly] Grammer. Would have been awesome.
Lession?
Lesson?
Lesion?
Deliberate asshole?
Seriously great comic.
Glad to see wetriffs has some photos up now.
i thought you spelled it foriegn on purpose. i am sadder now.
can you tell where your comic ends and your life starts?
Mers: note similar On a, I forum sentences once randomized in order in of post the a words. understood I’m whether sure anyone not.
Kyzentun- well, in this post I understood perfectly. It only works with shorter sentences and simpler ideas though. If it gets too convoluted you lose audience comprehension.
Actually you can mix up the letters within a word and as long as there are approximately the right number of them and more or less the correct letters themselves, and the first and last letter are correct, it’s pretty easy to read. Some university did a study on it once.
The way we actually read is fascinating.
Now I understand where your grammar nazi comics come from.
Where’s the porn? I can’t find it anywhere!
He spelled “weird” correctly. If that doesn’t indicate that the typos are intentional, nothing does. ‘Cause nobody with spelling problems can ever get “weird” right.
There seems to be another “embarassing” typo in today’s Turing Test comic. Wouldn’t this tactic be going after the “testers” (the examiners), not the “test-ees” (the AI)? What makes it extra embarrassing is that the term that Randall used sounds like part of the male anatomy (flashback to students trying to say “organism”).
I marvel at the many layers of stupidity/sarcasm in the internet. I will never be able to decide which is used in a particular part. I suppose accuracy in distinguishing comes down to one’s interpretation of a half-empty/half-full glass.
People think their so wity.
I always hope on the inside that everyone is secretly joking.
Unfortunately, it seems extremely likely that DJ wasn’t.
DAMN! I’ve been thinking that all of your misspellings were some sort of stenography. I’ve been making a list of all of the misspelled words in the comics to try and decrypt it! No wonder it wasn’t making sense.
i heart your comic
As long as you can manage to avoid mixing up “erotic” and “erratic”, I think you’re going to be fine.
At least, you’ll be one step ahead of me.
…Weirdest conversation with my grandmother EVAR.
Socially rejected nerds such as myself are still slaves to its rules. Ironic.
On the plus side, all these people who corrected your grammar and spelling consider you their teacher. Hence their desperate attempts to impress you by showing you just how many mistakes you make. Congratulations.
-Mekon
No spelling mistake is ekscusable. Also unacceptable are the shoccing inkorrect uses of “Its” and “It’s”. Fint the message?
on principal I usualy don’t edit comics after the first few minutes they’ve been up, but most of the time I’m around when they do.
—
Laurie points out in http://blag.xkcd.com/2007/10/08/embarassing-typo/#comment-9853 that there are grammar errors, but doesn’t point them out. Nobody seems to have noticed that this sentence simply doesn’t make any sense.
wow, these people need to get off their high horses and get a joke instead.
There are many comments here about the spelling errors in the post, but none yet about the mistakes in grammar. I spotted at least one:
> I’ve corrected it — on principal I usualy don’t edit comics after the first few minutes they’ve been up, but most of the time I’m around when they do.
Even though he corrected the mistake in the comic, I like to think that he was being ironic. Kind of like that Allanis Morysett song “Ironic”(I just murdered the spelling of her name btw). None of the things she mentions in the song are actually ironic, which I guess could be seen as ironic, since she made a song that implied irony when there was never any involved.
I’m not sure if that makes any sense, or if I used irony in its correct form. It’s annoying when people misuse that word isn’t it?
You accidentally spelled “Confession” correctly!
I think most of you fell into the trap.
This page of comments reminds me of an antlion pit
No, actualy, “I’d” can mean either I would or I had. It’s not resrticted to either meaning.
one more…
recieving -> receiving
I before E except after E. ;D
now, how did that work. I before E except after C, more like..
Umm, Jesin? You spelt “actually” wrong.
Please tell me you were joking.
Yes… Please do not point out the obvius.
–The Management.
good thing I’m not a native speaker, so I didn’t notice the mistakes in this entry until I starting reading the comments.
Ha!
“Schedual” was the only one to hit my radar.
My worst offense has always been “definate”.
Fortunately firefox now has spell check, or offense would have been a problem too.
Just found out about your comic a month ago from a coworker and was compelled to view the whole collection. Good stuff. Thanks for the free thoughtful entertainment. I really appreciate the style.
- D
In the comic number 342 you also mondegreened (I have deliberately coined this verb form). It’s “like a-ringing a bell”, not “like a ring in a bell”, which would be a very odd simile to say the least.
Heh. I’ll bet you don’t even know the difference between affect and effect!
That hurt to read. My eyes are cringing now, thanks.
Humility is overrated, anyway. Who wants to be humile? Sounds like a disease.
For a verbal equivalent of such hilarious stuff-ups, try “The Education of Hyman Kaplan” by E B White. Takes some beating!
Sammy_J:
It’s “steganography”
Sad thing is, I automatically read straight through almost all (except “lession”) the ‘typos’ because I’d just been viewing youtube comments.
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