In a previous post, I speculated that my tendency to misread words and phrases might be merely a matter of needing reading glasses.  I was wrong.

I got the reading glasses.  Now it has become embarrassingly obvious that the problem exists in the central processor, not the input devices.

Back in the summer when the Olympics were on, I glanced at a headline and read “Art Irritating Life at London’s Olympics”.  My interest piqued, I clicked over to the headline, only to discover that instead of a controversial article on modern art, it was a rather bland discourse about “Art Imitating Life”.  Quite disappointing.

A few days later, I roared with laughter when I discovered what I thought was the ultimate truth in advertising:  the disclaimer “Errors and Omissions Expected” on a law firm website.  Sadly, it was just the standard cover-your-ass statement “Errors and Omissions Excepted”.  I still think it’d be more truthful the other way around, but perhaps I’m cynical.

I was pumped when I saw “Vulgarity – The Difference Between the Amateur and the Professional”.  I thought, “At last, someone is recognizing the value of my most pronounced personality trait!”

But no, it was merely a product of my childish hope.  When I looked at it more closely, it actually read “Maturity”, not “Vulgarity”.

Well, shit.  As this whole example illustrates, there’s no danger of anyone ever identifying maturity as one of my principal qualities.

Speaking of childishness, I also misread a local business name as “Dopey Repro” instead of Copy Repro.  And if you have any OPA restaurants in your area, you may be interested to know that their tagline (according to my twisted brain) is “Fat Cheek”, not “Eat Greek”.

But honestly, I don’t think that one was really my fault.  I only glanced at it, and at this angle the font is hard to read, don’t you think?

I’m pretty sure my next slip-up was one of those Freudian things.  I almost never watch TV, but I’d just been forced to watch some of what I sincerely hope was a particularly sub-standard talk show.  I survived, but I was thoroughly traumatized by the prodigious and willful stupidity of the moderator.  I won’t even get started on the apparent intellectual capacity of the participants.

Shortly thereafter, I read “Psychological Vomit” in a headline.  It didn’t surprise me in the least.  In fact, I was pretty sure that was what I’d just witnessed.

Closer inspection revealed that the headline actually read “Psychological Portrait”.  But I’m sticking with my original reading.  What I saw on that talk show was either psychological vomit or psychological explosive diarrhea.  In either case, I needed a shower afterward.  You don’t want to get any of that stuff on you.

All this was crowned by the blog spam I got today.  It promised, “I’ll immediately snatch your ass”.

Oh, yeah?  Well, go ahead and try, buddy, but you’d better get your insurance paid up first.

The spammer escaped my misguided wrath when I re-read the sentence and realized the comment actually read “snatch your rss”.

Which still seems a little off-colour, but it’s probably just because I tend to avoid using the word “snatch”, in an attempt to avoid awkward misunderstandings.

So… have you read anything interesting lately?