Spelling Airs
December 29, 2009 We all know that nearly all cake decorators misspell "congratulations" every day.
(Um, John? I don't think...)
This is obviously because they're either drunk or completely incompetent.
(Okay now, we're totally gonna get in trouble for that...)
Now you might be saying, "I thought all drunk and completely incompetent people were politicians?"
(Well, that's true.)
But you would be wrong!
(I would?)
Which brings us back to cake.
(Oh, good.)
See? Comgratation. Interestingly enough, there are close to 3,000 accepted spellings of "congradulationed" in the decorators' dictionary.
Occasionally, though, they do spell it goodly:
Like so. Of course, sometimes after successfully spelling a word the thrill goes to the baker's head. Thusly we get "Ternifer" - a hybrid creation of "Terrific" and the name of the person who ordered the cake, perhaps?
Here again the decorator got the "hard" word right:
Sure, the number's a bit, well, wrong...but hey, numbers are hard!
Wisites: n. [wi-SET-eez] Small, fuzzy mammals indigenous to Uganda prized for their venom, which is said to cure gout and certain types of restless leg syndrome.
See? No misspellings here!
Well, y'all have a grrr-reat day now. Oh, and decorators? Bottoms up!
Jessica E., Christy C., Dana S., & Jessica, watch out; I hear those wisites spit.
- Related Wreckage: The "Year" of the "Grad"
Reader Comments (64)
My sister waited to have her baby shower until after her son was born, so out of town friends and relatives could see him. Therefore, we had a cake that said "Welcome, Henry."
Well, it was supposed to say that.
It said, "Welome, Henry."
Oh, Jackie Blue & Linda, your tales of argumentative, misspelling customers only reinforces Southern Gal's contention that dictionaries should be required in every bakery. Of course, that would make wreckspotting ever so much more difficult!
Just be sure to put those cakes in the "refridgerator" (I've had that argument, too!)
The second cake has me baffled. Was it a terrific season, a terrifying season or tenacious season? Because otherwise I'm going to assume ternifers are like deer and ducks and have their own hunting seasons. Perhaps this person bagged more ternifers than anyone else.
The "T" vs "D" argument reminds of when I was temping as a word processor at an insurance agency. I am a word fanatic (which makes it only fitting that I am now an English teacher in China!) and I changed the word "irregardless" to "regardless" on an adjuster's form. He came and royally chewed me out in front of everyone. I calmly told him that "irregardless" wasn't a word. He INSISTED that it was even when I supported my claim with a dictionary. He said that everyone "knew what it meant" so that meant it was a word! He tried to get me fired from the job, but the supervisor stepped in and told him if he wanted to use a word that didn't exist then that was his problem, but that she wasn't going to get rid of me!
Harumph! CongraTulations to me!
Am I the only one who read #2 as "Congratulations on a Jennifer seasons"?
Maybe the bakery was congratulating themselves on how often their work had appeared in the blog of Jennifer Yates...
Hilarious, as always :). I'm still struggling to wrap my brain around the "Frs" cake....wha...how...?
One digression though: what's with some commenters saying that it must be second-language speakers who wreck the inscriptions (and there are always a few!)?? Mithpellings such as we see here are more a symptoms of the awful educational system that gets away with imparting less-than-basic literacy skills, not ESL / native language issues. Random punctuation and phonetic (!!) (mis)spellings in a non-phonetic language like English are NOT the same as grammar problems, which WOULD be the result of English being a second language.
Sorry about the rant... but I teach at a research-1 university, and kids here no less than wreckerators don't know the difference between "you're" and "your"! And not one among them has been a non-native-speaker.
I have to agree with Anonymous... the last one looks like it has been messed after the original decorating. You can see the smudged white icing underneath the "i" and it is thicker than the letters on either side. I truly believe it was a capital "H" also...
I am in constant awe with each new post! Guess I'll have to take a closer look in our local bakery aisle.
Ternifer is the new Hollywood "it" couple like Bennifer and Brangelina.
"Best Wisites Jamie"
That photo begs to be on a T shirt!
I love all the wrecks, but I have to say, I laugh the hardest on the misspellings! So classic!
The anniversary one isn't a mistake : obviously it involves some pre-2002 Frenchpeople who are having a really, really cheap anniversary.
(At least I think Frs is the abbreviation for Francs, it might be Frc. 2002 is soooo long ago...)
I thought the second one said "Jennifer Seasons".
After reading some of the comments posted,I thought I would help shed some light on what may be going on with a few of these cakes.
Some of the writing is done after the decorator has gone home for the day. Usually it is a cake that is bought out of the case. If writing is requested,the responsibility falls on the person waiting on you.
Any decorator who gave a cr*p would try to prevent mishaps by making sure her coworkers had fresh writing bags available,show them how its done and encourage them to practice,and as a last resort,leave marzipan cut outs with "Happy Birthday" already written on them.
As for the rest of these cakes,I can only speculate that it has something to do with a serious flaw in employee drug screening procedures.
Hope this helps,
Shannon