Wednesday, June 18, 2008

"TURSDAY" is a dangerous word

On a recent Monday, I got an urgent email stating that a rush piece of work "absolutely had to be completed by Tursday!"

My first assumption was that "Tursday" was "Thursday" mistyped. But then I realized that the "r" is right next the the "e" on a keyboard. "Tursday" might actually be "Tuesday" mistyped! I almost didn't check with the sender, feeling pretty confident that Thursday was the only reasonable deadline. (I also didn't want to look a like a petty jerk by pointing out spelling errors.) I did check however. It was due Tuesday!

I made the deadline. Just wanted to present this as a cautionary tale if anyone's ever in a similar boat...

Btw, I'm away from home (and my computer) most of this week, or else I'd have made some kind of pretty picture to go with this post...

2 comments:

Kevin said...

When I covered education for a community newspaper, I was in the schools a lot. The kids in the high school drama class had this year-long in-joke about "Wenesday"* after a teacher misspelled Wednesday on the chalkboard.

A joke that once again begs the question: if a typographical error is known as a typo, would something handwritten like this be called a write-o?

*pronounced WEE-ness-day

Unknown said...

It's known as cacography.