OUR report of a relative who, as a child, thought the classic version of the Lord鈥檚 Prayer began 鈥淥ur father, a chart in heaven, Harold be thy name鈥� stated that this type of mistake is known as an eggcorn. A number of readers have suggested that instances like this in which a whole phrase rather than just a word is misheard, should be called mondegreens rather than eggcorns.
Ralph Hancock has supplied us with the garbled ballad from which the term derives, which you can also find in the Wikipedia entry for mondegreen: 鈥淵e Highlands and ye Lowlands/Oh where have ye been?/They have slain the Earl of Murray/And Lady Mondegreen.鈥� The last line here should be: 鈥淎nd laid him on the green鈥�.
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FIRST there were copyright traps, such as bogus words included in dictionaries that expose cheats who copy them when compiling dictionaries of their own (21 October, p 62). Now, according to a story in the Internet Patent News Service, we have the lazy inventor trap.
When lawyers draft a patent application, they send a copy to the inventor, who is supposed to check the wording carefully before returning it to be officially filed at a patent office. Sometimes things don鈥檛 happen quite as they should.
鈥淟iftoff: Chinese bank shares rocket鈥� said the headline in the financial section of London鈥檚 The Guardian newspaper on 28 October. 鈥淲ho is it sharing the rocket with?鈥� asks John Miller鈥�
US patent application 20040161257 describes a control screen for an office copier or fax machine. Buried in the legal wording is claim number 9 which states: 鈥淭he method of providing user interface displays in an image forming apparatus is a note which is really a bogus claim included amongst real claims, and which should be removed before filing; wherein the claim is included to determine if the inventor actually read the claims and the inventor should instruct the attorneys to remove the claim.鈥�
It seems the inventor did not read the claims because the bogus one stayed there and the US Patent and Trademark Office duly printed it for the world to read. This happened back in August 2004, so it has taken more than two years for someone to spot the gaffe 鈥� which backs up our suspicion that most patents never get read at all.
THE toilet cleaner that Richard Brice bought from Sainsbury鈥檚 supermarket has a long list of warnings on the label that concludes: 鈥淪eek medical advice if irritation persists. If swallowed, rinse out mouth and seek medical attention.鈥�
Immediately underneath this is the statement: 鈥淭his product is suitable for use by vegetarians and vegans.鈥� They must be a very tough lot, Brice observes.
EITHER Amazon in the UK has a very low opinion of young physicists鈥� literacy skills, or the young physicists themselves do. Students aged around 17 who order CD-ROMs for their A-level physics course are told: 鈥淒ear Amazon.co.uk Customer, We鈥檝e noticed that customers who have purchased DK A Level Physics 2006/2007 (PC) have also ordered Jump Ahead Read Year 2 (PC). For this reason, you might like to know that Jump Ahead Read Year 2 (PC) is now available鈥︹��
And what is the Jump Ahead CD about? The manufacturer exhorts readers to: 鈥淛oin CJ the Frog and Edison the Firefly as they embark on a worldwide adventure to find the ancient lost city of Ursulab. Climb mountains, explore dark caves and dig through layers of history as you learn and build critical reading skills for Year 2.鈥�
Year 2 schoolchildren in the UK are 6 and 7 years old.
MEANWHILE, Amazon has told Chris McManus that it has 鈥渘ew recommendations for you based on items you purchased or told us you own鈥�. One of these is Flow, the Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. However, McManus tells us he is most unlikely to take up this recommendation, since it was precisely his previous purchase from Amazon of Flow, the Psychology of Optimal Experience that the recommendation was based on.
IT SEEMS a curious claim to allow on your website for several months, but if it is true then BoardTracker.com鈥檚 鈥渁dvanced search鈥� is very advanced indeed. Since April, when reader Stilgherrian first told us about it, it has offered to search back through the last 6142 years of internet forum postings.
THE directions for use on the Le Parfait jar for pickling onions that Tony Thomson purchased warned him: 鈥淒o not consume products from an unsealed container.鈥� Thomson wants to know how else you get to the contents and wonders if Erwin Schr枚dinger might be able to help.
FINALLY, in the supermarket where David Prichard shops there is a section displaying mirrors, one of which is advertised as an 鈥渁ll-purpose mirror鈥�. When he reached the checkouts Prichard enquired as to how many purposes a mirror could have apart from the function of reflecting things, but none of the people working the tills knew. Nor did Prichard and nor do we.