Rein of Error

January 28, 2014 by Art of Eloquence

This is a new feature here on the Art of Eloquence blog. Many of my readers feel there has been a rein of error in communication these days. They cringe when they see misspellings, improper use of grammar and typos. This new feature of the AoE blog will turn your cringing into giggling.

Here are this month’s Rein of Error entries you can laugh at. No need to avert your eyes! It’s safe to look. Can you spot all the errors? These are just a few of the ones we had personal experience with.

This was my son’s cake from a few years ago.

This was an SAT Prep Book we chose not to buy for our dd about six yrs ago.

And here is a picture a friend of mine sent me that was in her city.

Did you spot all the errors? How’d they happen? Take a guess. Have your kids try their hand too. Please post your findings in the comments.

Happy Birtl Day, Chris!

June 11, 2012 by Art of Eloquence

Today is my son’s 13th birthday and I had planned to dispense with my usual discussion of communication to share a little bit about him with my readers. Here’s part of what I had planned to share.

This is a very fuzzy picture of him winning the Youth Cart Racing League over at K1 Racing. He holds the undefeated title of fastest lap ever at that location in all the years they have been open. This includes some professional race car drivers!

I’d already shared about my daughter’s recent college graduation so I thought I’d give equal time to my son.

I had planned to share my son’s incredible sense of humor and how he had inspired some of my latest JoJoisms, but God has a sense of humor and I just have to share with you how it played out on his birthday–partly because it’s hilarious and partly because it holds some wonderful lessons for us all.

We gave him a birthday party on Saturday where we had planned to serve an ice cream cake. Scrambling around to get ready for everyone’s arrival, I had forgotten to take it out of the freezer to make sure it was thawed by the time we were ready to eat it. Fortunately, my dh reminded me and it wasn’t too late. I put it in the fridge and had planned to take it out into room temperature to help it along.

My dh suggested I leave the cake out in the garage so it would thaw quicker, but I told him that was a bad idea. See, we live in ARIDzona and this is June. It was only 104 that day, but that means that the garage would be about 110 or more so I put it inside the house instead. I came back to it every so often to check, hoping it would be ready to eat. Not finding the cake where I put it, I asked my dh who said he put it in the garage.

Though it had only been in the garage for about ten minutes, the icing melted sliding the blue piping down the edges until it rested on the bottom of the carton. The ice cream inside was oozing out of the corners of the box and the word, birthday, split it two and ran down the side of the cake which now said, “Happy Birtl Day.” Now, you knew there’d be a communication funny in here somewhere, didn’t you? lol

My first reaction was, “I told you so!” But it soon turned to fits of laughter and an urge to capture this film on before the cake became ice cream soup.

My dh’s first reaction was guilt, turning quickly to acceptance as I wasn’t scolding him because I was too busy laughing and trying to find the camera.

We lit only one candle and sang a quick chorus of “Happy Birtl Day” to our son before the cake could slide off the table and drip onto the floor.

We all ate bowls of Birtl Day cake with spoons and had a ball. Later on, my dh did something he rarely does. He admitted, in public, that I was RIGHT and he was WRONG! Ahh…sweet vindication. lol

The moral of the story? Well, there are a few lessons to be learned from this experience.

First and most important: ALWAYS listen to your wife. ;D

Second: if you live in ARIDzona, NEVER leave ice cream cake out in your garage in June.

Third: if something unexpectedly goes wrong, get out your camera and have fun with it. We had such fun with this. In fact, my mom suggested we make new family tradition of Happy Birtl Day for Chris every year. I don’t think he will ever forget his 13th Birtl Day. Do you?

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Happy Bar Mitzvah Erving?

April 1, 2011 by Art of Eloquence

Today is April Fool’s Day, but then I’ve never liked April Fool’s. Some of the tricks played on this day seemed mean and others were downright cruel. However, I have a funny story for you that kind of qualifies as April Fool’s, Tabares Style. I need to begin at the beginning and that would be way back in the 70’s. Let me take you down memory lane.

All in the Family was a popular show in the 70’s and, if you are old enough to remember the show, you’ll know that Archie Bunker was a cheapskate. One episode had him purchasing a cake for his wife’s birthday and coming home with a cake that said, “Happy Bar Mitzvah Irving!” Why? Because the customer failed to pick it up and it was half price. All during the episode, people laughed and said, “Who’s Irving?”

My family had a great sense of humor and so for my mother’s birthday that year, we (on purpose) bought her a cake that said, “Happy Bar Mitzvah Irving!”

Run a bit further down Memory Lane and you’ll come to the early 90’s when my dd was a little girl. We told her about this family story and she loved the idea. She always said she wanted a cake that said, “Happy Bar Mitzvah Irving!” but we thought she was kidding.

Our dd is away at college in her junior year. Every year on her Spring Break, she and friends have a missions trip somewhere. Last year was San Diego. This year was Tampa. So she is almost always either 1800 miles away at college or on a missions trip during her birthday.

This year, on March 13th, she was scheduled to drive back 12hrs on a bus from Tampa to Nashville. She told us that the director of the organization she went with was planning something for her birthday. One of the activities was to have all 40 of her friends sing Happy Birthday to her each hour of the trip. They ended up singing in several languages and using many different arrangements of the song.

I contacted the director ahead of time, explained the story behind the cake and asked him to help me provide the cake for everyone on her birthday. He emailed back that he would be happy to help and gave me the number of a bakery near where they would stop for lunch. I ordered the cake and verified all the details of the cake.

I called her for her birthday after she should have had lunch and the cake. She was so excited and everyone had a great time with it. After all, this was a Christian ministry team on the way back from a missions trip eating birthday cake that said, “Happy Bar Mitzvah Irving!” Or did it? This story gets even more bizarre when you hear the punch line.

My dd mentioned that the cake was misspelled. I was a bit worried that the bakery wouldn’t spell Bar Mitzvah correctly. It’s not a popular spelling word. To my surprise, Bar Mitzvah wasn’t the word they misspelled.

Happy Bar Mitzvah Erving!

My dd said the cake was actually fairly ugly. Plain white icing with several GREEN roses. I had asked them to put a few flowers on the cake with green writing. Everyone said the cake was delicious and a fun time was had by all!

I regret that I don’t have a picture to show you. I had asked them to take pictures and they did, just none of the infamous cake. I do have good news, though. My dd has asked that this become a tradition on her birthday. Each year we’ll spell Irving a different way.

Happy Bar Mitzvah Urving

Happy Bar Mitzvah Earving

Happy Bar Mitzvah Yving…

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Rein of Error

Happy Birtl Day, Chris!

Happy Bar Mitzvah Erving?

Happy Bar Mitzvah Erving!

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