Spelling Bee Drop-Outs: Funny Spelling Fails That Prove Autocorrect Can’t Always Save The Day

We’ve all been there, typing away on our phones or creating a sign, feeling confident in the words we’ve chosen. But then, the horror strikes. You realize that you’ve used the wrong word or expression, and suddenly, your message takes on a whole new (and unintentionally hilarious) meaning.

Whether it’s a text message to your boss that accidentally included an inappropriate autocorrect, or a sign in a public place that has a misspelling or a mixed-up idiom, these moments can leave us feeling red-faced and embarrassed.

But let’s face it; there’s something undeniably funny about these linguistic mishaps. Maybe it’s the absurdity of the situation or the fact that we’ve all been there before. Whatever the reason, there’s no denying that accidentally using the wrong words or expressions can lead to some pretty entertaining (albeit cringe-worthy) moments.

Lemonade Stand

Sometimes it’s better to just bow your head in silence and laugh about mishaps later because it clearly seems like this irate and frustrated client of this print shop won’t take “no” for an answer when he wants some lemonade. 

We understand lemonade and laminate sound similar but hold your horses—if someone doesn’t understand what you are saying the first time, calm down and try and explain what you want. Otherwise, you’re going to have to walk home red-faced due to your ego!

Convicted Sandwich

Oh, the joys of typos. They can turn a perfectly good sandwich into a questionable meal in seconds. Take, for instance, the unfortunate typo that turned a “roast beef and caramelized onion sandwich” into a “roast beef and criminalized onion sandwich.”

One little mistake, and suddenly the sandwich takes on a whole new (and slightly disturbing) meaning. But hey, at least it’s a good reminder to proofread our labels and menus before printing them out. Otherwise, we might end up with some unintentionally criminalized onions on our hands.

What Rhythm?

Ah, the wonders of the “Al Gore Rhythm.” If only it were that easy to boost our social media presence! Unfortunately, it seems that the algorithm is a bit more complicated than just a few good beats courtesy of a former VP.

But hey, you’ve got to give it to the person for trying. At least they’re not afraid to ask for a little social media love from their friends. And who knows, maybe the Al Gore Rhythm is the secret ingredient to a viral post that we’ve been missing all along.

Aarons!

Ah, the classic mix-up of “Aaron” and “errand.” We all have those moments where our brains decide to take a little break and switch out a perfectly good word for something completely unrelated and absolutely hilarious! We’re so happy to see the friend played along, too. 

In this case, it led to a pretty amusing text message about needing to finish some Aarons instead of errands. One can only imagine what kind of tasks the Aarons might involve, but hey, at least they’re getting done! Just don’t do any of the many Aarons, please!

Double Typo

What started as an innocent post meant to remind you of the good times of your childhood TV shows, ended up in a hilarious thread that made us both laugh out loud and be stunned at the errors people make on the internet!

Wonder Pets! was a popular TV show where you could find a guinea pig, duckling, and turtle playing. Someone replied, missing the joke that it’s a reference to Wonder Pets!, but the person who corrected them didn’t do much better with a horrible misspelling of the word guinea pig.

Unfortunate Typo

If you have not replaced a completely normal word with a highly embarrassing and out-of-context word, are you even a real person partaking in the human experience? This sign went from hiding a private moment to sharing the exact opposite.

They went from just saying “due to personal circumstance”—which could mean anything, not that anyone needs to know the reason—to revealing a little too much information as to why the shop won’t be opening. Was this an honest error, or a Freudian slip? Hope you get or feel better soon, regardless of the reason!

Clean Compliments

Ah, the classic mix-up between “taking a bath” and “taken aback.” We’ve all seen the screenshots of someone trying to pay a compliment, only to accidentally reveal their bathroom habits instead, right? We’re kidding; this is a first for us!

After all, who wouldn’t be amused by the idea of someone taking a bath in response to a beautiful sight? So if you’re ever feeling tongue-tied when paying a compliment, just remember to double-check your phrasing. Otherwise, you might find yourself inadvertently sharing your hygiene routine instead of your admiration.

Not Organic

We get bombarded with so many greenwashing words daily, from organic, to plant-based to all-natural. What does any of this even mean? Of course, cinnamon is plant-based—there’s no way you can get it from any other source other than plants. 

So this caption on someone’s Snapchat is an example of the word “organic” getting stuck in their head, likely due to all the advertising. This is not an organic butterfly, but rather a beautiful piece of origami art in the shape of a butterfly!

Notify Friday

When did signs get so demanding? Who is Friday, and why do we, as customers just popping in for some gas, have to tell them that there is no gas left in the pumps? Surely the manager has to do that job!

This was probably just a typo gone wrong, but we do think it would have been clearer, even if they misspelled it, if they had used the full word “until” instead of “til.” Either way, now you’re out of luck with pumping gas, and you gotta go tell Friday the bad news. 

Confidence

The irony in this post is, that this person clearly has no low esteem since he is (1) able to ask that question, and (2) ask it with such confidence that he doesn’t even realize that they completely butchered the word self-esteem.

They must have been in a hurry or used voice-activated typing because there is no way anyone really thinks self-esteem is expressed as “shelf and steam.” Although, you might run out of some steam and put your confidence on a shelf? Yeah, we can’t explain this one. 

Alpaca Lips

If the apocalypse has anything to do with alpaca lips, we would be horrified because what would that even entail and how do we survive this awful ordeal? We understand this poor person was just tired of all the bad luck, but double-check your spelling to prevent even more trouble.

Maybe this is some wild way of predicting that a fifth horseman of the apocalypse is going to involve some alpacas and lips? Maybe they will attack humans by kissing them until they can’t move anymore? It sounds silly and scary!

Honest Mistake

You know what? We are 100% behind this guy—we admire doctors and anyone working in scientific and medical fields but darn those terms and names. How are you supposed to know how to spell “musculoskeletal” without seven years of training?

Okay sure, it’s not that bad, but could you honestly say you would know how to spell this word if it was said to you over the phone? That’s what we would hear too—mosquito skeleton. And we wouldn’t even judge you or ask you questions; do your mosquito thing!

Mid Evil

We have to admit, when we first learned the word medieval is not spelled mid evil, we were confused—and a bit disappointed—too. So we are letting this error made by this person slide. Though, maybe they did mean it literally…

Maybe this chair is mid-level evil and has been possessed by a medieval spirit? Likely not, but again, this is not the worst mistake we have seen. Plus that is a great price for such an old and haunted chair, don’t you think?

Feet Acceptance

We understand that some sayings or expressions are sometimes a bit odd. Like “it’s raining cats and dogs”—surely whoever thought of that has some sort of explanation. But hearing it for the first time, it just sounds like someone got their words mixed up.

So we assume that is what this person also thought when they first heard “accept defeat” and interpreted it as “accept the feet.” Maybe they also thought it was weird, but understood that not all idioms make sense. Or perhaps they were merely using it ironically after a previous mistake. We’ll never know.

Yikes

We are going to take a wild guess and say that this manager or owner of this establishment is either seriously ticked off or at their wits’ end. They had put up a sign out of desperation stating that no one wanted to work, but it seems that included their dictionary, too.

Instead of saying “inconvenience,” they accidentally said “incontinence,” which, if you are stressed, might happen. So was this a Freudian slip or a hilarious mistake? Just don’t tell them about it; they’re angry enough already, and you wouldn’t want them peeing their pants! 

Exotic Flavors

You know when you walk through a store owned by someone outside of your culture and you find wonderful and odd things that they might enjoy and it piques your curiosity? We love stores like that, but we tend to steer clear if there’s any indication it’ll hurt us.

This slice of cake promises that the apple will one-up the burning acidity of pineapples. We assume this is an innocent spelling error… just to be safe, we want you to try it before we do and report back if it is safe to eat!

Her Cake

We’re not sure if this bakery wants to exclusively serve cakes to people identifying with the pronoun “she” or maybe this is one of the worst ways to spell the word “cheesecake.” We wonder how long it will take them to realize their mistake.

We often mishear things, too, but if you’re making a “she’s cake” with cheese, don’t you think at some point your brain would go “oh! It’s CHEESE cake?” Maybe it is just us that has that problem… or maybe this is not a cheesecake at all!

Green Reaper

This guy has some good questions to ask, and we appreciate that he wanted to know why an expression or a name does not make sense. But, ironically, it was an honest mistake on his part by not hearing the correct term. 

They had heard “green reaper” instead of the “grim reaper,” and was concerned to see that the green reaper was always depicted as clothed in black robes. Maybe there is a green reaper, and it comes and takes away all your dead houseplants you’ve neglected.

Portal Power

Wherever this place is, we definitely want to go visit, since they clearly have some futuristic tech! We have always wanted to use a portal to teleport from one spot to another, although, we might not be too keen on teleporting whilst using the restroom. 

This is probably auto-correct that made this hilarious typo, but wouldn’t it be great if you had to go to the portal porta potty to get to the closed inside washrooms? It would be like a fun little game you have to play late at night!

Unknown Disease

If your joints hurt, you have to go see a professional to make a diagnosis. It’s not a great idea to jump on the internet and google your symptoms—we all know how that goes—and it’s also a bit offensive to those who actually have the disease you think you have if you don’t. 

But either way, this example of someone self-diagnosing themselves is okay since it is a completely fictional disease called Arthur Write This. However, we have a feeling they might have meant arthritis—a disease that affects your bones and ability to move your joints. 

Cool Pets

We love how this confusing sentence was cleared up by naming a single character from a popular movie that came out years ago. This person’s father texted them that their family member had found a chick muck—we don’t know what that is. 

And we don’t want to know; it sounds awful. But it seems by the simple mention of Alvin, we now know this person’s dad meant a chipmunk! How adorable—we much rather prefer adorable chipmunks over the horror that chick mucks might be. 

Peeping Mat

If there is one word you do not want to hear in a place where you expect total privacy—like the bathroom —it’s the word “observe.” This person bought a fluffy, absorbent mat to put in their bathroom, but it has some creepy text on it. 

It mentions this rug is super observant—which sounds terrifying but it was probably just a bad translation and the company tried to print “super absorbent.” That’s a quality we prefer our bath mats to be, not observant, please! Big Brother, stay out of our bathrooms.

Monthly Rules

Bad tattoos are one of the worst text fails you can get, not only because it is expensive to get or painful to draw on, but it is very permanent, and removing them are not as easy as you think. So please, let this remind you to always triple-check your spelling on a tattoo. 

Instead of making a stand, they got a confusing tattoo about May’s body. So either these rules only apply in the month of May, or their name is May, and this is a clever pun… or this is a bad error that is going to be painful to correct.

Single Owner

It is always funny when someone is trying to make a serious post on the internet and then uses a rather hilarious mistake involving some adult words. They had tried to say this dresser is made from Mahogany wood but said something else. 

We’ve never thought of our furniture as having a preference in partners, but maybe this dresser only ever belonged to one person and no one else, so it might be what you are looking for. What a hilarious mistake to make!

Sally Manilla

We don’t know who Sally Manilla is, but we sincerely hope she’s okay since there is a false illness named after her. This person confidently posted a photo of them holding a roll of raw cookie dough and someone commented and expressed their concerns. 

Cookie dough often includes raw eggs, which carries the risk of Salmonella—an infection that can be fatal. The person who commented and expressed their concerns was too quick to type and said Sally Manilla instead—a refreshing take on the word, but let’s stick to the correct terminology. 

So Many Larva

Here is the problem with this photo; not only did one person hilariously misspell both the word “lava,” but they gave us a really disturbing image of a lava lamp made of larvae. Worse, still, there seems to be a trend and now everyone is calling them larva lamps. 

If this was on an Australian page, we might understand it due to the accent sometimes seeming to add r-sounds in a word, but perhaps this is a common pronunciation in the UK, too. Maybe now is a good time to put some adwords on the word “Larva” for a boost in sales since it’s so popular!

Expiry on Inspiration 

This person desperately needs our help. They had gotten three whole liters of milk—almost a gallon—and they have to get rid of it before it inspires them in 3 days. Wait. Inspire? Surely there is no magical inspirational milk out there. 

Milk does, however, have an expiry date, which is likely what this person meant. But we will let this one slide since it can be stressful to have that much milk to use up in such a short amount of time. PS—you can freeze milk!

Pan Flips

Well, pan flips are definitely a thing—whether you can make a Roblox pan flip happen is another question. This person not only stuck to their pan flip mishap the first time around, but actually corrected the person trying to help him. 

They said they made a pan flip for art class, and when told it was a pamphlet, they said no. They insisted they’d made a mini book… which is a pamphlet. People need to start saying words out loud and slowly before they make corrections on something. 

Ghost Rider

You know, job posts these days are getting more and more demanding. At first, you needed to have 20 years of work experience but not be aged over 30, and now you apparently have to have supernatural powers when all you want to do is to write some blog posts!

This job ad stated you needed to be a ghost rider in order to work for the company, but what they actually meant was a ghostwriter, which goes to show maybe they also need an experienced in-house editor to proofread posts like this.

Commit to the Condiments

This photo is great for anyone who loves to see some great organizing skills, but the person who posted it wanted to bring our attention to the volume of condiment packets they receive, even if they specifically ask not to include them in their order. 

But the typo is so funny since it is a commitment to organize these packets, and the delivery personnel are committed to great service by adding in some sauce packets. They actually meant to say condiments, but we get the idea. 

Poor Uncle

If there was no photo of this person’s ankle in this picture, we might have never understood what they were trying to say. Did their uncle cause the injury, did their uncle get injured, or is there a whole slew of injuries exclusive to a person if they are an uncle?

This poor fella hurt his ankle, and we hate to laugh at someone when they’re injured, but we’re only laughing at the spelling, not their injuries. We hope he recovers soon and that this injury did not involve or was caused by any uncles. 

Don’t Correct Me

The only thing we love more than a hilarious spelling of a word, a misuse of a word, or using the wrong expression in a situation, is that if someone corrects the person in question, they hit back with some harsh words. 

This goes to show that people’s egos are bigger than their abilities to accept help from others. This person made a statement about assuming but spelled it “a soon,” which makes no sense at all. But the correction was added with a harsh attitude.

All Utensils

“For all intents and purposes” is an expression meaning “essentially” or “in effect.” It’s used to say that something has the same outcome or result as something else—which is what this dog parent said on social media to hear some feedback about their decisions. 

First off, we think it is 100% okay to take your dog trick or treating. You will get some frowns, but you’ll probably get a lot of compliments, too. But please, it’s not utensil purposes; it is intents and purposes!

Egomaniac Chair

What’s the difference between ergonomic and egomaniac? If you use these words wrong, you’re guaranteed to be laughed at. This person posted an ad where they sold a comfy office chair, but instead of saying it’s ergonomic, they said something else. 

Yep, apparently, this chair needs some humble pie since it is classified as an egomaniac by its current owner. Imagine a chair so full of itself it tells you when you’re not allowed to sit on it because you’re not worthy! Sheesh!

Greasy Weather

Clearly, we need to teach more units of measurement in school or at least show people what that superscript circle symbol means next to the temperature gauge, because one thing it definitely does not represent, is grease. Or is the US so against the metric system they’ll use lubricants?

This person wanted to say degrees but expressed it as the grease. Oh goodness, if it was 10 the grease outside, would that be considered really bad and greasy or just a slight slick in the morning? We really need to know!

Vicariously 

Bi curious is a term that recently made the rounds, and this person clearly got it stuck in their head. Maybe they did mean that they would live bi curiously through the other person, but it seems like vicariously just makes more sense. 

Vicariously, according to the dictionary, means “in a way that is experienced in the imagination through the actions of another person.” This makes sense if the other person lived an exciting life, but maybe they did mean they were bi curiously living their love life, too.

Strange Shower

This person was so close, yet so far from saying something sensible. When commenting on the post of someone who mentioned it was the supermoon on Thursday, they thought they would add some valuable information but instead made a hilarious mistake. 

If the was going to be a meat shower, we would be horrified and terrified, and we would want to book a ticket off of earth immediately. They had meant meteor shower, and it was so close, yet so far, that they got it wrong. 

Permission First

It is important to ask chicken’s permission—for what exactly, we are not sure—but this person is so adamant about it that it was on their profile under the title “the key to my heart.” Clearly, it must be something they consider to be serious. 

Chicken permission is not something that exists, but maybe this person doesn’t know how to spell parmesan. We just feel that if it was your favorite, and you read it often on menus when ordering, you ought to start remembering how to spell it or at least Google it. 

Shrimps Camping

If shrimps could camp, then we could fly! But we actually understand this small error this person made; not only is it an odd name for a dish, but the origin of the name of this dish, scampi, is something you don’t often find anymore. 

People use shrimp instead of scampi nowadays in this dish, and all it really is is pasta with some shrimp tossed into the mix. There is no need to make dishes’ names so difficult to pronounce. But here’s the real question: do you think shrimps grill marshmallows when they camp?

Floor Less

If someone told us we look floor less, we would be floored for sure. What would that even mean? You look so great/bad that the floor gave way under you, perhaps? We prefer not to hear that “compliment” unless it means something else. 

This person likely meant to say flawless, which makes much more sense, so why not just try and use that word? What’s odd is that so many ads and magazines use this word, so it’s a bit odd to see that it is still used wrong. 

Autumn Furniture

This one made us laugh out loud, ottoman—a word with three syllables—is replaced by autumn, a word that sounds incredibly similar but only has two syllables. It just sounds like they gave up trying to say the right word and spelled it accordingly.

These people are selling an ottoman—a small footstool that is usually plush and goes well with sectional couches. But autumn, on the other hand, is not something that can be sold. Although we do love a comfy sectional couch to cuddle on in autumn, that’s for sure!

Count Rare

The word that the person was intending to use, contraire, is a simple word but very often misspelled because it’s actually a French word. So we don’t blame them for spelling it wrong, only that they used real English words to replace it. 

Surely if you use a word like contraire, you would know that it has nothing to do with counting or rarity, so why use those two words? We would prefer you mess up the foreign spelling a bit rather than use actual words—but luckily, it is entertaining. 

Oregon

Hey, this digital organ might be made of Oregon pine, so the seller of this ad might not be too far off. But this is definitely not a state. It’s a musical instrument; a type of organ, a digital piano with sound effects. 

Either way, this is a bargain for only $10, and whether it is an organ or Oregon, we’ll take it! It is worth much more in real life. People probably get confused by the word organ when referring to instruments, so they assume it must be spelled differently. 

Familiar

This is one we cannot comprehend. There can be no way that this person actually thinks that familiar is expressed as “four meal your,” right? Come on; how would you even assume that it was a usable phrase? We doubt this person went to school, as they claimed.

We sincerely hope this was them typing with voice-to-text functions on their phone, because that is the only way we could ever believe someone would say “familiar.” If this wasn’t the case, our faith in humanity is slowly (okay, quickly) declining. 

Up Notches

We have to admit, it took us a while to figure out what this person was ranting about, but eventually, we realized they were trying to say “obnoxious.” Spelling isn’t everyone’s forte, and when it comes to big words like obnoxious, we get it. 

We just can’t believe that people, still today in the 2020s, don’t use their built-in spell checkers on their phones. It is right there, and it is ready to help you not make silly mistakes like these, or else no one is going to take you seriously!