Random poll is random

[conuly]

Poll #21672 Orthography

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 91

View Respondents

Which error is worse?

View Answers

Seamen for semen - "a crazy man tried to cure disease with his seamen"
18 (19.8%)

Semen for seaman - "welcome aboard, able semen!"
73 (80.2%)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Story Behind The 'Tea And Oranges' In Leonard Cohen's Song 'Suzanne' (Everybody says cinnamon, but looking at the loose leaf constant comment I've got in my pantry, and sniffing it, I think cloves must compose the majority of the "sweet spice".)

Understanding the New Mormon Temple in Rome

Erdogan Is Sowing a Turkish Obsession in Latin America

The Five Stages of Decay Cupcake

On the Trail of the Robocall King

Conspiracy Theories Can’t Be Stopped

Pass two reforms to ensure justice

Older Americans Are Awash in Antibiotics

Scientists once thought tropical cyclones were impossible in the South Atlantic. Another one just formed. (Nothing to worry about, I'm sure, just another freak weather event.)

“The Big Error Was That She Was Caught”: The Untold Story Behind the Mysterious Disappearance of Fan Bingbing, the World’s Biggest Movie Star

Going on hunger strike

Widespread losses of pollinating insects in Britain

The Underground Railroad of North Korea

Study shows Millennial Men do not think of women as their equals

‘A State of Emergency’: Native Americans Stranded for Days by Flooding

Puerto Rico faces food-stamp crisis as Trump privately vents about federal aid to Hurricane Maria-battered island

U.S. House panel OKs move to give Congress records of FBI probes against Trump (FFS.)

Hellscape 2021: Why a Second Loss to Trump Could Produce an Existential Crisis for Democrats

Forgotten victims: The children of Islamic State

1 week. 3 suicides. 1 tragic connection to school massacres

Columbine Survivors Talk About the Wounds That Won't Heal

Comments

[silverusagi]

I'll see you a seamen, and raise you a typo I saw recently, which was 'waste deep.' And no, they weren't wading through a sewer. :)

[jessie_c]

I could almost conjure up a scenario where a mentally ill man would try to use seamen to cure his disease. In the more benign variations, he'd only ask for their help.

[dine]

this made me think of the Russian hockey player, last name Semin, who was nicknamed Jizz for a while

[conuly]

I think seamen for semen was worse.

[conuly]

Ah, but what sort of help?

[conuly]

But of course.

[the_siobhan]

I dunno about worse, but the second example definitely makes me snigger more.

[marahmarie]

Sort of a toss-up, as the more I read them, the more I don't dislike either/kind of get the joke. Maybe I should've just tossed a coin.

[conuly]

Ah, well, the first was a sentence I saw just today.

[conuly]

Hey, it's not my fault if every sailor's sacred!

[jessie_c]

Any and all sorts. Lending their expertise, fetching Doctors, getting medicines, performing care tasks and any number of possible benign activities.

It's the malevolent possibilities which conjure nightmares, and so I am unwilling to visit them tonight.

[sovay]

Which error is worse?

You can read the second as awful punning; the first is just wrong.

[oloriel]

Exactly my reasoning!

[cactuswatcher]

Even with my dyslexia, I'd notice those.

[mama_kestrel]

Seamen for semen just gets a wince. "Able semen" is funny.

[redsixwing]

The first makes me snicker.

The second makes me snicker /really hard./ Ergo.

[steorra]

Your division line of tildes here is enough characters without spaces to break layout on my phone. (The poll results would probably break it on their own anyways, but that can't be helped.)

[chickenfeet]

She was only an admiral's daughter... cpmplete as you wish

[thekumquat]

Reminds me of the post in linguaphiles - man needs official transliteration of his Cyrillic documents from the Russian government, but they won't spell his name the way he liked it in English, partly because he was from some group the officials disliked.

Lots of being told that official spelling doesn't matter, he can call himself whatever he wants, chill - until he explains that he calls himself Simon but they want to translate it as Semen... Suddenly all commenters agree with him.

[conuly]

OH NO.

[steorra]

I can't tell the tone of your "OH NO" - I hope you're not annoyed that I pointed it out. Thanks for fixing it.

[conuly]

Nah, I fixed it. It's a little enough thing to do. If I were annoyed I would not have replied to you at all. (Which doesn't mean that every time I don't reply to people I'm annoyed at them, just that I've finally learned that not replying is usually the safest option when I'm feeling pissy.)

Though I suppose I am a little annoyed at your phone/myself/the world, but who can help that?

[conuly]

*snickers*

[conuly]

"and she lived alone quite happily with her horde of cats and her hoard of books, the end."

[conuly]

Maybe it was an autocorrect error.

[conuly]

"Hard."

(We're all 12 here.)

[conuly]

Noted.

[steorra]

Okay, good :-)

I think I'd put the blame on Dreamwidth layouts not being able to handle long unbroken lines/wide images.

[redsixwing]

*smugface*

[nocowardsoul]

Of rears and vices she had seen enough.

[peristaltor]

I'm not sure how to respond, simply because I used to work on boats. Meaning, I've been both.

[chelseagirl]

As someone whose surname (Siemann) is pronounced similarly . . . aaaarrrrghhh!

(My late father's name was Richard, and he was born in 1931. He finally got people to stop calling him "Dick" but those were more innocent times.)

[conuly]

That's a rather... unfortunate pair of names.

[spikethemuffin]

One of my clients where I work is a Vietnamese gentleman named "Phuc Diep."

[l33tminion]

That poll just reminds me of the Paul and Storm song The Captain's Wife's Lament.