Cake Wrecks, World Educator

I thought you guys might appreciate this e-mail I got today:

Hi Jen,

A friend of mine posted a link to your site, (and) I think I spent about 3 hours yesterday going though your blog when I was supposed to be working on lesson plans for the English class I teach. I am an American English teacher at a big elementary school not far from Seoul, South Korea. My Korean coworkers heard me laughing so hard that they came over to my desk to investigate. Clever as I am, I told them I was working on my next lesson, which I wasn't... until I realized that I WAS!

So today, I decided to ditch the book and instead teach grammar and spelling mistakes from Cake Wrecks. The fourth and fifth graders loved it, and the students were able to correct about 90% of the mistakes! How embarrassing that even Korean elementary school students know better!

Thanks for the great teaching material!

- Carolyn H.

The Cake Wrecks pop quiz - gotta love it.

Here the children are wondering how the U.S. ever became a world power.
(The answer, of course, is Whoopie Pies.)

Carolyn, thanks for helping to spread the Wreckage on such a global scale. Why, by influencing these young minds you've made our bid for ultimate Wrecky world domination that much easier! Tell me, did you perchance introduce the kiddos to their friendly neighborhood Carrot Jockeys?

Maybe We Should Stick with "Good Job"

Graduation season is upon us, and with it comes the irony of those who cannot spell congratulating those who have (hopefully) learned to do so. In writing.

I suppose it would be easier if "graduation" and "congratulations" didn't sound so much alike. As it is, we end up with a lot of Franken-style mash-ups:

Putting a "d" in "congratulations" is now so common that I've had folks tell me it's a new word created specifically for congratulating graduates. [burying face in hands] *sob*

Admit it: Now you want to see a cake that says "Congradulations Gratuates" as much as I do. Well, I don't have one. (Yet.) But I do have some more fun manglings:

"Congratutahons, Sus & Robert!"

What's that? Her name isn't "Sus"? Meh. So Sue me.

After a while you start to see the same mistakes over and over again. There's the "Something's Missing...":

The "End of the Road!":

(Complete with a truly epic grad cap - wow.)

And of course the classic "Letter Switcheroo":

Actually, this is a Switcheroo combined with "Something's Missing", since there's no "e". And while "Gradutas" does sound like something from Taco Bell, it kinda has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Some decorators successfully navigate the "congratulations/graduation" minefield only to stumble right on the home stretch:

That's quite the stumble though. "Comminsoning?"
(It was supposed to be "commissioning".)

Then there's this...thing:

CCCs with "s"s that look like "g"s, gratuitous ellipses, and sloppy icing piled higher than the cupcakes themselves have no "honor". Only "honers".

Anony, Donna, Sue M., Ila P., Sarah L., Jessica R., Christine H., & Rosalie C., congratutahons! You've gratulated from Wreckporter school!