• From expensive and embarrassing misprints to causing a spacecraft disaster, we count
ten innocent typos that had shocking consequences!
10 – The Bible Promotes Promiscuity, • To err is human, but apparently not even
the heavenly father is above the odd inattention to detail.
• In 1631, London’s Baker Book House published what came to be known as ‘The Wicked Bible’.
Somehow they allowed a mistake to slip through in the Ten Commandments.
The missing word accidentally resulted in the command ‘Thou shalt commit adultery.’
• Parliament was furious and ordered that all bible copies with errors be immediately
destroyed.
The London publisher was also fined 3000 pounds.
Very unchristian. 9 – Seller Short-Changes Himself,
• A typo in an Ebay listing left a red-faced seller significantly short-changed.
The listing was for a 150-year-old bottle of Allsopp’s Arctic Ale, which was worth
a small fortune to vintage collectors.
• However, the seller misspelt the brand name, resulting in next to no ad traffic.
Since no collectors knew the bottle was for sale, an eagle-eyed shopper who chanced upon
the rare booze was able to purchase it for a paltry $304.
• Using correct spelling, the lucky buyer promptly re-sold it for a tidy $503,300.
8 – Brave New Word, • English is a hodgepodge language made
up of words from all over.
Although grammar junkies believe it’s sacred, the language actually has some words that
are based neither on Greek nor Latin; they’re freaking typos.
• ‘Dord’ is one such word.
It first appeared in the Webster’s Third New International Dictionary in 1931 as a
physics and chemistry noun meaning density.
It was then used freely until 1939 when an editor discovered the word lacked an origin
story or an ‘etymology’.
• After the grammar police broke down the door to investigate, it was revealed that
‘dord’ was originally submitted by Webster’s chemistry editor and was supposed to read
‘D or d’, which was the abbreviated form of ‘density’.
But the letters were printed too close together, and a new word was born.
7 – Car Dealership Promotional Error, • In 2007, a Roswell car dealership conceived
a brilliant promotion to increase sales.
They sent out 50,000 scratch tickets, one of which would reveal a $1000 cash prize.
• Unfortunately, the Atlanta-based marketing company behind the production mistakenly printed
every one of the 50,000 scratch tickets as a grand-prize winner.
This brought the dealership’s grand payout to $50 million, which would’ve made even
Oprah look like a stingy gift-giver.
• Unable to honour the debt, the dealership offered ticket-holders a $5 Walmart consolation
certificate, which cost them $250,000.
Definitely an expensive blunder. 6 – NYC Ticket Price Blunder,
• In 2013, New York City’s Transportation Authority had to recall 160,000 maps and posters
announcing a price hike for pay-per-ride travel cards.
• The price was rising from $4.50 to $5.00, but a typographical error listed the ‘new’
price as $4.50, so the information was recalled – most likely at commuters’ expense.
• I suppose we should be grateful the ‘new’ price wasn’t $450, which is probably what
a train ride will cost in ten years.
5 – Shares for a Steal, • In December 2005, a trader on the Tokyo
stock exchange made what’s known in the business world as Code 11 – that is he completely
fucked up!
• Obviously the trader had his pants on backwards that day, because he intended to
trade one share at 610,000 yen, but instead placed an order for 610,000 shares at one
yen each.
• No amount of pleading to the Tokyo Stock Exchange could reverse the error and the firm’s
loss was around $18.7 million in damages.
Christmas bonus forfeited!
4 – Money Misprint, • Coin misprints have happened at mints
all over the world, but they’re usually minor details like the modified coin husks
on Wisconsin state’s quarter.
• Certainly no coin errors have been as shocking as the one that occurred at the Chilean
Mint.
Engraver Pedro Urzua Lizana made an error in late 2008 that was overlooked by all his
superiors.
Under the approval of multiple employees, the Chilean Mint printed coins that misspelt
the name of their own country.
• The coins, which read ‘Chiie’, somehow went unnoticed until ten months later.
By that point they were widely circulated and the Chilean government couldn’t do anything
about it.
• The general manager and responsible staff were sacked for the humiliating oversight
and the coins went on to become huge collector’s items.
3 – Racist Pasta, • The Australian arm of juggernaut publisher
Penguin made an unfortunate blunder in 2010 publication of The Pasta Bible.
• Instead of pepper, the recipe recommended seasoning the dish with ‘salt and freshly
ground black people’.
Honest mistake.
I mean, I’m always asking for sex with my coffee when I mean sugar.
It’s just lucky wear handprints well.
• No recall was made of the books already being circulated, but the printer quickly
destroyed all 7000 remaining copies in its inventory.
It’s lucky the error wasn’t preserved using the powers of the interweb…
2 – NASA’s Missing Hyphen, • Hyphens, or dashes, aren’t usually considered
important punctuation, but the absence of one from a line of coding spelt disaster for
NASA in 1962.
• The missing hyphen caused the failure of Mariner 1, America’s first interplanetary
probe.
Given America’s determination to win the Space Race, it’s possible the dash was a
communist bent on sabotaging the mission.
• The missing hyphen was needed to correctly set the craft’s trajectory.
Without it, the craft exploded minutes after takeoff.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey novelist Arthur C. Clarke called it ‘the most expensive
hyphen in history.’
1 – X-Rated Vacation, • Back in the prehistoric days of phone
books, California-based travel agency Banner Travel Services printed an unforgettable ad
in the Yellow Pages.
• Their ad boasted of the company’s “forte in ‘erotic’ destinations”.
Obviously they’d meant to write ‘exotic’, but the typo certainly piqued the interest
an entirely new demographic: perverts!
• The printer that approved the mistake offered to waive its usual $230 monthly listing
fee, but Banner Travel Services went ten steps further and sued for $10 million.