My Collection of Funniest Typos – updated regularly

Every now and then, in my job as a proofreader, I come across a typo that makes me laugh out loud or elicits a ‘Whhhhaaaaaat?!’ – when the author accidentally writes something that ends up having a meaning they really did not intend.  I got the idea for this post while reviewing the work of my author sister, novelist Terry Tyler Terry Tyler’s Books, who said that when writing at speed and getting involved with the story, it’s so easy to type something that you simply can’t believe you did. (Which is another reason not to use that old false friend spellcheck, by the way, because these are mostly genuine words, just in the wrong place.)

I’ve been keeping a list (and I wish I’d started it earlier, I’ve seen some absolute lulus!) I thought I’d share them here for your amusement, and they are all strictly anonymous – I will not reveal my sources. But I and the authors concerned have shared a laugh over their mistakes, and it just proves something that I always maintain, i.e. that one cannot effectively proofread one’s own work. My thanks go to all who (initially unintentionally!) contributed.

	What they wrote	What they meant	What it looks like
1	On the lamb	On the run	Sitting on a young sheep
2	It’s a bad wrap	I’ve been wrongfully accused	I don’t like my lunch order
3	Vualá	Voilà	I don’t know even basic French, and I didn’t bother to Google it
4	Dough-eyed	Doe-eyed	Eyes like pastry?
5	Martin atmosphere	Martian atmosphere	Hello, Mr Atmosphere
6	A small vile of liquid	A small vial, or glass container, of liquid	This liquid’s really nasty!
7	Leaning against the door jam	Door jamb	They make jam out of doors?! Rather woody taste.
8	The muscles in his neck were taught	Taut	What did they learn?
9	He was tempted to eat a second desert	Gimme some of that ice cream	You going to eat all that sand?
10	On the left was yellow, arid dessert	Desert	I’d rather have the strawberry cheesecake
11	The judge halted the trail	Oh, the trial!	What, the Appalachian Trail?
12	She worked in a stationary shop	She worked in a stationery shop	It didn’t move around, then?
13	I will stay away from you and your elk	I don’t like you or your friends	Keep that great brute away from me!
14	Two policemen were peeing through the window.	Peering (I hope!)	Surely they could arrest each other for that?
15	Doug came from Manchester, and spoke with a strong Manchurian accent.	Mancunian	Oh, he was Anglo-Chinese, was he?
16	You know what they say, a room wasn’t built in a day!	Rome	Why not? (And they don’t!)
17	You could melt butter with the heath between my thighs (from an erotic novel)	Heat (although there are better ways to soften butter)	Way too many weird mental images right now!
18	The rent was dew	Due	The fairy folk pay my rent
19	There were two centuries guarding a gate	Sentries	Okay, I give up!
20	She practised sign language with her two dead colleagues	Deaf	Sounds like a bit of a waste of time
21	Don’t talk such uniformed nonsense	Uninformed	I prefer my nonsense to be dressed casually
22	We passed our time in gentile conversation	Genteel	We didn’t talk about any Jewish people
23	She was wearing black patient leather shoes	Patent	A change from her usual irritable footwear
24	He’s regarded as an danger to the pubic	Public	Watch out for those sensitive areas, lads
25	My knees trebled in anticipation	Trembled	Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Mr Six-Knees!
26	He attended Greenwich Navel Collage, also It looked like the scene of a navel battle	Naval College	One vowel – big difference
27	Henry left the martial home	Marital	Presumably because it’d turned into a war zone
28	She spent a lot of time sawing her own clothes	Sewing	Shabby chic?
29	Sand out the armed guards!	Send	Smooth out their rough edges, har har!
30	The Baby Jesus was laid in a manager	Manger	Sounds a bit uncomfortable for both of them.
31	While lambs gambled in the sun	Gambolled	OK, everyone, aces are high, deuces are wild!
32	Angus Dei	Agnus Dei	A Scotsman favoured by God
33	A barmy hot night	Balmy	What a crazy night that was
34	I heard a woman whaling	Wailing	There she blows!
35	Ma trade	maître d’	Yes, it took me a while to work out what he meant
36	(To a patient in a fertility clinic) ‘You may wish to consider freezing your seamen for the future’.	Semen	It seems conditions in the navy are very harsh these days!
37	The ground was rhymed with frost	Rimed	No it wasn’t, it rhymes with ‘sound’.
38	I used to love our post-colitis conversations	Post-coital	Talking about inflammation of the bowel and rectum doesn’t sound like fun to me.
39	He stained his ears in the darkness	Strained	What colour?
40	He picked up a tight-fitting green shit and pulled it over his head	Shirt	Yeugh!
41	Katie tiled her head towards him	Tilted	Sounds dreadfully uncomfortable
42	He bit his nails, irradiated	Irritated	He won’t have many nails left to bite, if he keeps that up
43	She glared at me through gritted teeth	OK, mental picture?	Sounds as if someone hasn’t redrafted!
44	He’d got caught up in a drug-dealing racquet	Racket	Bet he failed to score, lost that game, and was ‘served’ with a summons!
45	I didn’t want to panda to his whims	Pander	Especially if they included eating bamboo shoots
46	I looked very festival sheik	Festival chic	I suppose a thawb is comfortable for a festival, but how would you keep it clean?