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Misreadings

  
  

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Saveloy
16:40 / 12.03.02
Time for an update on misread things. Me, recently:

Vertical Singleton - from a post by Mordant C. (Non UK types - should be Valerie, not vertical). Vertical Singleton is a massive upright Valerie, held in a permanently pointy-up position by one of those launch towers normally used for big moon rockets. A symbol of national pride and general uprightness.

Hitler Beans - on sale at the local greengrocers. Seen at speed, so no idea what it should have been. A Hitler bean would be a dried pulse with a head of black roots combed into a side parting.

Weapons of mass production - from newspaper (proper version obvious). A self-contained factory unit is dropped into the middle of an enemy city. It unfolds, drills down into the soil (searching for raw materials: minerals, oil if lucky) and starts churning out piles of useless shite. (There was something like this in an episode of the Clangers...)

[ 12-03-2002: Message edited by: Saveloy ]
 
 
Persephone
16:47 / 12.03.02
Here, a consortium of gay businessmen decided to pool their money to start their own gym, they bought a rundown building and gut rehabbed the whole thing, put in state-of-the-art equipment, and when they were almost ready to open they unfurled this gigantic banner the size of a bedsheet that I happily read as GAY, all caps and red letters.

Say it loud! Say it proud!

But no, it just said GYM.
 
 
Ethan Hawke
16:59 / 12.03.02
I read an e-mail from a friend, about another, closeted friend as: "He has not yet publicly owned up to his love of cork."

Needless to say, cork has since taken on a life of its own in our correspondence.

[ 12-03-2002: Message edited by: todd ]
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:17 / 12.03.02
Mine tend to be obscene, like an advert for sunscreen that I thought said "SLUT!" instead of "SUN!"
 
 
Turk
19:33 / 12.03.02
Not so much a misreading, but I can't help giggling whenever I see hear or read the phrase 'tug-of-love', it sounds so naughty and hot.
 
 
w1rebaby
19:46 / 12.03.02
not a misreading at all, but whenever I saw that "fridge magnet" advert for Mars ice cream that was up on buses everywhere a while back, I couldn't help but mentally thank Mars Confectionary for plugging my site. The bastards forgot the ".org.uk" at the end though.
 
 
Persephone
19:53 / 12.03.02
If I may segue a little off-topic, I recently read Mark Merlis's Pyrrhus and it really jumped out at me every time the word "expressionless" was used. Which was actually kind of a lot. Lower-case, too, every time. So it was a little like having expressionless pop up in the book every so often, like someone reading over your shoulder.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
20:00 / 12.03.02
All the same, think of the similar effect yr suit may have on those of us reading up on mythology...
 
 
lentil
09:57 / 13.03.02
I was served wanton soup and chic peas at a recent dinner with my firlfriends's parents. How we chuckled!
 
 
A
11:11 / 13.03.02
quote:Originally posted by Mordant C@rnival:
Mine tend to be obscene, like an advert for sunscreen that I thought said "SLUT!" instead of "SUN!"

"Slutscreen" would be a pretty good name for a band.
 
 
Saveloy
09:31 / 19.03.03
A mis-hearing, yesterday:

"What did you have?"
"The burger."
"Any good?"
"Weeeell... it was better than Borstal."

The actual phrase was "better than a bowl of soup" but I much prefer the misheard version ("Booooorstal." For the benefit of those who weren't around in Britain during the 70s and early 80s, Borstal was a sort of junior prison for teenage fugs, designed to give them a "short, sharp shock"). I like the idea of a menu which gives you a choice between burger or Borstal.

While I'm here - I expect we've all mis-seen something - a flatmate of mine once thought that a large bubble blown past his bedroom window was the helmeted head of a man on a moped (he was 2 stories up, btw) - but has anyone ever mis-smelt anything?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:46 / 19.03.03
(threadrot) How did you find it, Perseph? The book, that is, not sharing it with the boy expressionless?

Back on topic - I once read "14 killed in Karchi clashes" on a newstand as "14 killed in karate classes", which seemed a bit dangerous.
 
 
Persephone
11:48 / 19.03.03
Eeesh, I suppose that I found it very readable. I don't generally read contemporary fiction. I was reading this for the Iliad connection, obviously. I remember being pleased that I got the reference to Provincetown. Do you know, I guess I found it dated in the way that Back To The Future became dated once the movie's present fell back into the past. I remember when it didn't seem like there would be a future after AIDS, but we're in some sort of future right now...

...believe me, this is a beautiful meditation. Inside my head.


[And explosive, apparently, as I blew up the board trying to post this earlier...]
 
 
rizla mission
15:03 / 19.03.03
A housemate of mine misheard a TV advert for Kinder Surprise as GENDER SURPRISE.

Which, it goes without saying, would be the coolest piece of confectionary ever.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
15:31 / 19.03.03
I just read 'Troops getting pissed in Iraq'.

I'm sorry to say they are 'poised'. Still, it was a thought.
 
 
William Sack
15:33 / 19.03.03
Gender Surprise. I love it.

I'm a bit of a cloth-ears myself. I was talking to a psychiatrist at a party recently and he was telling me about some therapy he was experimenting with. I honestly thought he told me that he got depressives to punch each other. I sort of pieced together my mistake when he carried on talking about it and it became clear that he had said that he took them bungee jumping. I sometimes think we hear what we want to hear.
 
 
Saveloy
15:45 / 19.03.03
I'm going to be chuckling at Gender Surprise all evening now...

On a chalk board outside a sandwich shop, several weeks ago but it's stuck with me:

"PISS AND PANTIES!"

(a.k.a. pies and pasties)
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
19:11 / 19.03.03
Oh God. Where to start? I remember one particularly embarrassing occasion when I went past an Evening Standard sign reading "London trains feet from disaster". My first thought was "which disaster? How come there were so many feet left? And what are we training them to do? "
I was genuinely baffled. The "true" reading only hit me once I'd sat down on the tube, opened my book (which unfortunately was about Peter Sutcliffe) and, before I had a chance to even glance at a page, I absolutely pissed myself laughing. And everyone moved away, thinking "Fuck. What a psycho."

More when I overcome my shame.
 
 
The Strobe
22:05 / 19.03.03
From today's Sun's Dear Deirdre, I read (or words similar): MY GUILT OVER FILING.

I've read too much mnftiu.cc .
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:37 / 19.03.03
A few weeks back I saw a top-shelf mag which had the words "College girls: we're WILD! splashed across that cover. Only I read it as "College girls wear WIGS!"

Like you do.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
05:45 / 20.03.03
Something that made feel really bad about the way my mind works- again, one of those Evening Standard boards- "Quake death toll mounts". "Blimey," thought I, "I bet they're using the chain-gun."
 
 
Shrug
09:57 / 20.03.03
I was in a chip shop and saw a sign saying please do not feed your children, but it actually said please do not put your children on the counter which is much more sensible.
 
 
William Sack
20:52 / 24.03.03
And then there's reading the words correctly but getting the meaning wrong. I just found myself reading this headline and wondering how long it would be before a new study found that the new dog vaccination sucks.
 
 
The Puck
10:37 / 25.03.03
The headline of our local paper was MUM-TO-BE MURDERED, i remember thinking 'my god how can they report news that hasnt happend yet and i wonder what there doing to stop it'
 
 
William Sack
11:54 / 25.03.03
Your local paper wouldn't be the Evening Mail by any chance Puck? They have form for that kind of thing.
 
 
Olulabelle
12:26 / 25.03.03
Driving through Australia I saw a sandwich shop called "Filling Groovy." But it wasactually called that, so not strictly a misread. And there's a fish and chip shop I know called The Codfather.

Hmmm. Filling Groovy. The Codfather. See what they've done there? ;-)
 
 
The Puck
22:17 / 25.03.03
H.I.R how in hicks name did you

a) Know my local paper is the Evening Mail?

b) Find that site?
 
 
Whisky Priestess
23:11 / 25.03.03
If that's not brilliant, HIR, I don't know what is. My favoruite new superhero is Eye Cancer Boy. Bitten by a radioactive cyclops perhaps?
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
23:29 / 25.03.03
There's a building on the way to work that has, in big letters, the names of the people who used to own it:

TA Field.

Which, of course, I read as T&A Fiend.

Sigh.
 
 
A
06:16 / 26.03.03
I just saw a David Bowie CD that I was sure had BOVINE written across it in giant letters.
 
 
Sax
15:24 / 26.03.03
Completely off-topic but I remember an old cartoon from Mad or possibly Crazy yonks ago which featured two hipsters walking past a shop window. One reads the sign on the store and says to the other: "Won't they ever stop? What the heck is a disco unt?"
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
01:07 / 28.03.03
Well, according to my reliable optics, Jamiroquai has an album in his canon called A Fuck Odyssey.
 
 
Shrug
03:54 / 29.03.03
I just misread "The Man from C.O.U.N.T.A.D.A.M" as "The Man from C.O.U.N.T.D.O.W.N" and wondered if it could indeed be Richard Whitely.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
07:42 / 29.03.03
Turning up for the demo last week, I swear I saw a sign outside the South Bank Centre pointing the way to the "Spam Garden".
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
23:55 / 29.03.03
We have a box of cookie-things in our kitchen, which are called Almond Toscani. However, I keep thinking they're Almond Toscanini - mmm, conductory...
 
  

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