Tuesday 5 May 2009

Give It A Few More Years, And No-one Will Even Notice....

They seemed the perfect toys to teach inquisitive young minds the basics of the ABC.

Unfortunately, even a child could spot something was seriously wrong with the set of alphabet building blocks.

The block for 'U' was marked with the word 'umberlla' under a colourful brolly, while the side for 'Y' had a boat sailing over the word 'yatch'.

A third face had some creative punctuation, with 'X' standing for X'mas tree.
They originate, of course, from China. The mother who spotted the errors was incensed:
'There are only 26 words on these blocks,' said Mrs Toulson, a tax manager. 'You'd think they'd be able to get them all right.'
Actually, three out of twenty-six isn't a bad hit rate when you are a peasent worker toiling to produce a foreighn language toy for mere pennies a day.

Consider the 'comments' column in any online newspaper - this one Laban Tall points to is a good example.

Suddenly those blocks don't look too out of place after all, do they?

5 comments:

  1. *sigh*

    We're doomed, aren't we...?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I suppose, in this litigious age, we should be relieved Mrs Toulson did not sue for damages - although I suppose a child could hardly be disadvantaged by being unable to spell 'yacht' unless its father is Fred Goodwin.

    Incidentally, my teenage son's current garb of choice is a hooded T-shirt bearing the legend:

    NORTHEST BOXING
    23TH ANNUAL COMPETTION
    15 RONNDS

    ReplyDelete
  3. I spotted your deliberate spelling error (foreighn).

    Do I win a prize?

    ReplyDelete