9 replies to this topic

[kbarber]

I recently ran my spellchecker over a course I was preparing about the Ballets Russes (or the Ballets Wusses, as the spellchecker would have preferred). For the hilarious results, please see my blog post.

[cubanmiamiboy]

"for Bronislava Nijinska: bronchitis hijinks"  

[rg]

a friend noted at one point that Rudolf Nureyev was Rudolf Nervy
and Margot Fonteyn was Magot Fountain.

[Paul Parish]

CHOICE!!

Ballets Wusses is REALLY good.

[diane]

wonderful! I love it! Oh, for a good laugh! Thank you!

-d-

[kbarber]

You're welcome. Yeah, they cracked me up too. I feel sorry for anyone who works in communications for the "Camembert Dance Company"!

[Paul Parish]

Katherine, this is such a delightful post; and god know, spell-check has done horrible things to me. But I DID have a live editor once change "pointe shoes" to "pointed shoes," I am not making this up, and asymetrical became symmetrical somehow once it was out of my hands.... Worse than that, but I won't go into it.

[kbarber]

Paul Parish, on 26 September 2012 - 11:24 PM, said:

Katherine, this is such a delightful post; and god know, spell-check has done horrible things to me. But I DID have a live editor once change "pointe shoes" to "pointed shoes," I am not making this up, and asymetrical became symmetrical somehow once it was out of my hands.... Worse than that, but I won't go into it.

Asymmetrical...symmetrical... aren't they the same thing?   Surely what you meant was "a symmetrical"! I saw "Pointy shoes" in the Toronto Star once, but I don't know whether the original writer, the copy editor, or the spellchecker was to blame.

[sandik]

Paul Parish, on 26 September 2012 - 11:24 PM, said:

But I DID have a live editor once change "pointe shoes" to "pointed shoes,"

I interviewed a teacher whose audition notice in a small paper asking dancers to bring their pointe shoes was "corrected" by a well-meaning copy editor, but my favorite example is from a Portland, Oregon paper which changed a mention of German expressionist soloist Mary Wigman into Mary Wigwam.

[diane]

Mary Wigwam!! Oh, my!!!

-d-