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See Again
© Getty Images
0 / 31 Fotos
The Lincoln Memorial
- The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. is an iconic monument. The original craftsman however made a mistake when carving the word "Future." He carved an "E" instead of an "F," so it read "Euture." Part of the letter was later filled and the mistake rectified.
© Getty Images
1 / 31 Fotos
Spinach
- Spinach is rich in iron…but how rich, really? In 1870, German chemist Erich von Wolf misplaced a decimal and recorded spinach's iron content as 35 grams instead of 3.5 grams.
© Shutterstock
2 / 31 Fotos
Spinach
- The mistake contributed to the popularity of spinach, with characters such as Popeye the Sailor Man fueling up on the leafy green vegetable. It took 67 years for the mistake to be discovered, and it wasn't until 1937 that the nutritional value of spinach was reevaluated.
© Getty Images
3 / 31 Fotos
Mariner 1
- The Mariner 1 space probe was launched on July 2, 1962. It was supposed to be NASA's first interplanetary probe, programed to fly past Venus. Shortly after it was launched, it went terribly off-course and the mission had to be aborted to avoid the probe colliding into a residential area.
© Public Domain
4 / 31 Fotos
Mariner 1
- A typographical error in a computer equation was the culprit. A missing overbar on the letter "R" allowed for incorrect instructions to be sent to the probe. The missing "R̄" cost NASA US$18.5 million.
© Public Domain
5 / 31 Fotos
Bonobo
- The name "bonobo" is believed to come from a misspelling on a shipping crate from a town called Bolobo, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a result, these primates have been known as such since 1954.
© Getty Images
6 / 31 Fotos
'Finnegan’s Wake'
- During the writing process, James Joyce dictated parts of the book 'Finnegan’s Wake' to his friend, novelist Samuel Beckett. While doing so, someone knocked on the door and was told to "come in." This vocal invitation made its way into the manuscript after Joyce decided to include it in the text.
© Getty Images
7 / 31 Fotos
'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'
- A rare first edition of JK Rowling's debut novel has the word "philosopher" misspelled as "philospher" in the title on the back cover. A copy sold for £68,800 (US$83,555) at auction back in 2019.
© Getty Images
8 / 31 Fotos
Pennsylvania
- The original constitution has Pennsylvania spelled in two different ways, including one with a single "n."
© Getty Images
9 / 31 Fotos
Pennsylvania
- Pennsylvania is also spelled as "Pensylvania" on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.
© Getty Images
10 / 31 Fotos
Madagascar
- The first European to (officially) visit the island of Madagascar was the famous explorer Marco Polo. It's believed that Polo was looking for Mogadishu in Somalia at the time, so a number of mispronunciations and misspellings led him to call the island Madagascar.
© Getty Images
11 / 31 Fotos
Madagascar
- Prior to Polo, Arab cartographers had it down as Gezirat Al-Komor, or "Island of the Moon," but the name Madagascar stuck.
© Getty Images
12 / 31 Fotos
Marvin Gardens
- The neighborhood of Marvin Gardens in the popular board game Monopoly is actually a misspelling of "Marven Gardens."
© Shutterstock
13 / 31 Fotos
Travel agency ad
- Banner Travel Services placed an ad in Yellow Pages (remember those?), but a typo ended up attracting another type of customer. The ad was supposed to list them as experts in "exotic" destinations, but instead it read "erotic" destinations.
© Getty Images
14 / 31 Fotos
Cedric
- The name Cedric is actually a misspelling of the Saxon name Cerdic. The roots of the misspelled name can be traced back to Walter Scott's 1819 novel, 'Ivanhoe.'
© Public Domain
15 / 31 Fotos
Chile's mint
- In 2010, the production of 1.5 million 50-peso coins was approved by the then-director of Chile's minting department, Gregorio Iniguez. The only problem was that the country's name was misspelled as "Chiie." Iniguez lost his job after the incident.
© Shutterstock
16 / 31 Fotos
The Guardian
- The famous British newspaper has had a long history of typos and misspellings. So much so that the satirical magazine Private Eye even nicknamed it 'The Grauniad.' Famous examples include blaming unrest in Todmorden on "writers" instead of "rioters."
© Getty Images
17 / 31 Fotos
The Guardian
- Other example includes misspelling the word "misspelled" as "mispelled" more than once. The Guardian even published a list of the best and worst typos in celebration of its 200th anniversary.
© Getty Images
18 / 31 Fotos
Google
- When Larry Page and Sean Anderson were brainstorming for an index website back in 1997, the name "googolplex," came up, but it was then shortened to "googol." Luckily, while looking for availability of the domain, Anderson typed "google" instead. They both liked the typo, registered it, and you know what happened next…
© Shutterstock
19 / 31 Fotos
Telephone software error
- Between June and July 1991, approximately 12 million people across the US lost their phone services. The reason? An error in the software caused by a typo. Apparently someone typed a "6" instead of a "D" and all hell broke loose.
© Getty Images
20 / 31 Fotos
‘The Pasta Bible’
- 'The Pasta Bible' was published by Penguin Australia in 2010. The book contained a rather racist mistake that led to the destruction of hundreds of copies. The book recommended seasoning the dish with "salt and freshly ground black people."
© Getty Images
21 / 31 Fotos
Soldier's name
- In 2009, the then-British Prime Minister Gordon Browne wrote a condolences letter to the mother of a Grenadier Guardsman who died in Afghanistan. The man was named Jamie Janes, but the PM misspelled his name as Jamie James. British tabloid The Sun then tried to shame Brown on the first page…but they too misspelled the soldier's name, calling him Jamie Jones.
© Getty Images
22 / 31 Fotos
The Wicked Bible
- The 'Wicked Bible,' also known as the 'Sinners Bible' or the 'Adulterous Bible,' was first printed in London in 1631.
© Public Domain
23 / 31 Fotos
The Wicked Bible
- The publisher missed a crucial three-letter word in the Ten Commandments, and it was a disaster (certainly for the publishers, who were heavily fined by the king). The line in this version of the Bible read "Thou shalt commit adultery."
© Getty Images
24 / 31 Fotos
Allsopp's Arctic Ale
- A 150-year-old bottle of Allsopp's Arctic Ale was bought on eBay for US$304. The collector was lucky enough to spot it, as it was listed under the misspelled name Allsop's Arctic Ale (with one "p"). The bottle was resold for US$503,300.
© Getty Images
25 / 31 Fotos
1-800-Operator
- MCI had a service called 1-800-Collect that allowed people to make cheaper collect calls. Their competitor, AT&T, responded by launching 1-800-OPERATOR. The problem was that lots of people spelled it "OPERATER" instead of "OPERATOR," so the call ended up being redirected to the MCI network. The company profited handsomely from the misspelling of a single word.
© Shutterstock
26 / 31 Fotos
Dord
- "Dord" is an actual ghost word. It appeared in the 1934 Webster's International Dictionary as a synonym for density. It turns out it was an editor's note "D or d" (as a reference to writing the letter "D" in upper or lower case) that was included as a word by mistake.
© Getty Images
27 / 31 Fotos
Niklas Grossmann
- The Swedish hockey player had his name misspelled for five years. Grossmann is spelled with two "n," but the NHL spelled it as "Grossman," with a single "n."
© Getty Images
28 / 31 Fotos
The Nationals' jerseys
- Two Washington Nationals baseball team players entered a game in 2009 wearing misspelled jerseys. The jerseys read "Natinals."
© Getty Images
29 / 31 Fotos
Dwyane Wade
- The former basketball player often had his name misspelled as "Dwayne." In fact, Dwyane's parents actually intended to name their son Dwayne, but he was mistakenly registered as Dwyane. Sources: (Mental Floss) (Top Tenz) (Insider) (BBC) (Review Studio) (HuffPost)
© Getty Images
30 / 31 Fotos
© Getty Images
0 / 31 Fotos
The Lincoln Memorial
- The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. is an iconic monument. The original craftsman however made a mistake when carving the word "Future." He carved an "E" instead of an "F," so it read "Euture." Part of the letter was later filled and the mistake rectified.
© Getty Images
1 / 31 Fotos
Spinach
- Spinach is rich in iron…but how rich, really? In 1870, German chemist Erich von Wolf misplaced a decimal and recorded spinach's iron content as 35 grams instead of 3.5 grams.
© Shutterstock
2 / 31 Fotos
Spinach
- The mistake contributed to the popularity of spinach, with characters such as Popeye the Sailor Man fueling up on the leafy green vegetable. It took 67 years for the mistake to be discovered, and it wasn't until 1937 that the nutritional value of spinach was reevaluated.
© Getty Images
3 / 31 Fotos
Mariner 1
- The Mariner 1 space probe was launched on July 2, 1962. It was supposed to be NASA's first interplanetary probe, programed to fly past Venus. Shortly after it was launched, it went terribly off-course and the mission had to be aborted to avoid the probe colliding into a residential area.
© Public Domain
4 / 31 Fotos
Mariner 1
- A typographical error in a computer equation was the culprit. A missing overbar on the letter "R" allowed for incorrect instructions to be sent to the probe. The missing "R̄" cost NASA US$18.5 million.
© Public Domain
5 / 31 Fotos
Bonobo
- The name "bonobo" is believed to come from a misspelling on a shipping crate from a town called Bolobo, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a result, these primates have been known as such since 1954.
© Getty Images
6 / 31 Fotos
'Finnegan’s Wake'
- During the writing process, James Joyce dictated parts of the book 'Finnegan’s Wake' to his friend, novelist Samuel Beckett. While doing so, someone knocked on the door and was told to "come in." This vocal invitation made its way into the manuscript after Joyce decided to include it in the text.
© Getty Images
7 / 31 Fotos
'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'
- A rare first edition of JK Rowling's debut novel has the word "philosopher" misspelled as "philospher" in the title on the back cover. A copy sold for £68,800 (US$83,555) at auction back in 2019.
© Getty Images
8 / 31 Fotos
Pennsylvania
- The original constitution has Pennsylvania spelled in two different ways, including one with a single "n."
© Getty Images
9 / 31 Fotos
Pennsylvania
- Pennsylvania is also spelled as "Pensylvania" on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.
© Getty Images
10 / 31 Fotos
Madagascar
- The first European to (officially) visit the island of Madagascar was the famous explorer Marco Polo. It's believed that Polo was looking for Mogadishu in Somalia at the time, so a number of mispronunciations and misspellings led him to call the island Madagascar.
© Getty Images
11 / 31 Fotos
Madagascar
- Prior to Polo, Arab cartographers had it down as Gezirat Al-Komor, or "Island of the Moon," but the name Madagascar stuck.
© Getty Images
12 / 31 Fotos
Marvin Gardens
- The neighborhood of Marvin Gardens in the popular board game Monopoly is actually a misspelling of "Marven Gardens."
© Shutterstock
13 / 31 Fotos
Travel agency ad
- Banner Travel Services placed an ad in Yellow Pages (remember those?), but a typo ended up attracting another type of customer. The ad was supposed to list them as experts in "exotic" destinations, but instead it read "erotic" destinations.
© Getty Images
14 / 31 Fotos
Cedric
- The name Cedric is actually a misspelling of the Saxon name Cerdic. The roots of the misspelled name can be traced back to Walter Scott's 1819 novel, 'Ivanhoe.'
© Public Domain
15 / 31 Fotos
Chile's mint
- In 2010, the production of 1.5 million 50-peso coins was approved by the then-director of Chile's minting department, Gregorio Iniguez. The only problem was that the country's name was misspelled as "Chiie." Iniguez lost his job after the incident.
© Shutterstock
16 / 31 Fotos
The Guardian
- The famous British newspaper has had a long history of typos and misspellings. So much so that the satirical magazine Private Eye even nicknamed it 'The Grauniad.' Famous examples include blaming unrest in Todmorden on "writers" instead of "rioters."
© Getty Images
17 / 31 Fotos
The Guardian
- Other example includes misspelling the word "misspelled" as "mispelled" more than once. The Guardian even published a list of the best and worst typos in celebration of its 200th anniversary.
© Getty Images
18 / 31 Fotos
Google
- When Larry Page and Sean Anderson were brainstorming for an index website back in 1997, the name "googolplex," came up, but it was then shortened to "googol." Luckily, while looking for availability of the domain, Anderson typed "google" instead. They both liked the typo, registered it, and you know what happened next…
© Shutterstock
19 / 31 Fotos
Telephone software error
- Between June and July 1991, approximately 12 million people across the US lost their phone services. The reason? An error in the software caused by a typo. Apparently someone typed a "6" instead of a "D" and all hell broke loose.
© Getty Images
20 / 31 Fotos
‘The Pasta Bible’
- 'The Pasta Bible' was published by Penguin Australia in 2010. The book contained a rather racist mistake that led to the destruction of hundreds of copies. The book recommended seasoning the dish with "salt and freshly ground black people."
© Getty Images
21 / 31 Fotos
Soldier's name
- In 2009, the then-British Prime Minister Gordon Browne wrote a condolences letter to the mother of a Grenadier Guardsman who died in Afghanistan. The man was named Jamie Janes, but the PM misspelled his name as Jamie James. British tabloid The Sun then tried to shame Brown on the first page…but they too misspelled the soldier's name, calling him Jamie Jones.
© Getty Images
22 / 31 Fotos
The Wicked Bible
- The 'Wicked Bible,' also known as the 'Sinners Bible' or the 'Adulterous Bible,' was first printed in London in 1631.
© Public Domain
23 / 31 Fotos
The Wicked Bible
- The publisher missed a crucial three-letter word in the Ten Commandments, and it was a disaster (certainly for the publishers, who were heavily fined by the king). The line in this version of the Bible read "Thou shalt commit adultery."
© Getty Images
24 / 31 Fotos
Allsopp's Arctic Ale
- A 150-year-old bottle of Allsopp's Arctic Ale was bought on eBay for US$304. The collector was lucky enough to spot it, as it was listed under the misspelled name Allsop's Arctic Ale (with one "p"). The bottle was resold for US$503,300.
© Getty Images
25 / 31 Fotos
1-800-Operator
- MCI had a service called 1-800-Collect that allowed people to make cheaper collect calls. Their competitor, AT&T, responded by launching 1-800-OPERATOR. The problem was that lots of people spelled it "OPERATER" instead of "OPERATOR," so the call ended up being redirected to the MCI network. The company profited handsomely from the misspelling of a single word.
© Shutterstock
26 / 31 Fotos
Dord
- "Dord" is an actual ghost word. It appeared in the 1934 Webster's International Dictionary as a synonym for density. It turns out it was an editor's note "D or d" (as a reference to writing the letter "D" in upper or lower case) that was included as a word by mistake.
© Getty Images
27 / 31 Fotos
Niklas Grossmann
- The Swedish hockey player had his name misspelled for five years. Grossmann is spelled with two "n," but the NHL spelled it as "Grossman," with a single "n."
© Getty Images
28 / 31 Fotos
The Nationals' jerseys
- Two Washington Nationals baseball team players entered a game in 2009 wearing misspelled jerseys. The jerseys read "Natinals."
© Getty Images
29 / 31 Fotos
Dwyane Wade
- The former basketball player often had his name misspelled as "Dwayne." In fact, Dwyane's parents actually intended to name their son Dwayne, but he was mistakenly registered as Dwyane. Sources: (Mental Floss) (Top Tenz) (Insider) (BBC) (Review Studio) (HuffPost)
© Getty Images
30 / 31 Fotos
History's most unbelievable cases of typos and misspellings
From the Bible to the Constitution
© Getty Images
We all make mistakes, including the misspelling of words. But while most of our typos and misspellings don't have serious consequences, sometimes missing or altering a letter or word can really mess things up. This has been the case in a number of occasions throughout history, and you'll get to know all about them in this gallery.
Curious to find out what the most famous typos and misspellings in history are? Click on!
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