Pedants' corner

[webofevil]

Earlier this year I was shown a business letter, written by an irate plumber, whose unstable capital letters were threatening to take a firm to court for non-payment. In a wild rollercoaster of grammar and spelling, one word in particular stopped us in our tracks. In the event it was the one who was a terrible speller who deciphered what matey was talking about. I've a feeling the rest of us would otherwise still be staring at it now, trying to puzzle it out.

Is it more obvious than I think? Or did you also spend ages staring at it as if it was a Magic Eye puzzle?

"I WILL BE FORCED TO USE PROSIDIA"



It was, of course, "PROCEDURE".

Comments

[strictlytrue.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you should have checked the procidia guyed.

[ex-cornfedpi814.livejournal.com]

I got it straight away. Do I win a prize for having a wrong brain?

[alfaguru.livejournal.com]

Got it straight away. I don't know what that means.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

I also got it straight away.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

(Although in fairness in a very old house of mine we had an amusing letter pinned up which my ex-husband had received from a landlord once threatening "court procerdings". And I once worked with a man who filled in the accounts ledger and consistently put "widow cleaner" every Thursday when the er ... widows had been cleaned.)

[judge-death.livejournal.com]

I didn't get it.

[setting-sun.livejournal.com]

Prosidia sounds like a laxative. How this would help him legally though is beyond me.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Fairly quickly. But I was really hoping it was going to be "pr(a)esidia".