EXTRAORDINARY claims aimed at gullible people are distressingly common. Less common are utterly incomprehensible claims aimed at鈥� well, who knows?
Andrew Hemsley finds P.W.B. Special One Drop Liquid unusual in that it is almost impossible to work out what it鈥檚 supposed to do. According to , it 鈥減ossesses a most extraordinary property. The human senses, in common with the requirements of all living material including trees and all other green plants, have evolved the requirements for forward facing light energy.鈥�
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What鈥檚 that, then? Not much help here: 鈥淟ight, in common with most energies within Nature, readily forms an inverse pattern of itself when encountering an obstacle. Light is particularly modified when encountering a transparent obstacle鈥� To demonstrate the inverse pattern formation on objects which fill the modern environment, simply place salt on one face and sugar on another face of the object.鈥�
There may be a clue in this instruction: 鈥淎ll Compact Discs should have a drop of the Special One Drop Liquid applied to both sides and spread across the surface using a finger tip鈥� 鈥� but we are also advised to put it on photographs and electric light bulbs.
So what is it about? What would it do if it worked?
Feedback can鈥檛 even find a price for the stuff. But there are many more puzzling gems of content-free marketing at . These include a 鈥淨uantum Clip 鈥� capable of manipulating certain inanimate material into a condition that mimics the quantum state of our living senses鈥�, at a mere 拢500.
IS 鈥渂ecuase鈥�, with its 4,950,000 hits on a famous web search engine, the commonest typo in the English language? Graham Barrow asked this question on 20 October and many readers took up the challenge. Here are just some of their findings.
鈥淰ivyan Lisewski has sent us a photo of a sign in New Zealand that states categorically: 鈥淲ater and mud pools do not climb fences鈥濃��
When Alex Llewelyn searched for 鈥渁ccomodate鈥� on the FWSE he got 6,610,000 hits; 鈥渟ence鈥� scored 8,040,000 and 鈥渄efinately鈥� logged an incredible 17,400,000. John Lavery鈥檚 鈥渟eperate鈥� also checked in at about 17,000,000, so these all beat 鈥渂ecuase鈥�.
But what about misspellings of the really common words in the English language? Here the picture becomes more complicated. Using 鈥渢eh鈥� scores 27,100,000, but as several readers have pointed out, this has become a legitimate way of spelling the word among the web fraternity. It even has its own Wikipedia entry.
Rusty Nash and William Cowley note that with 鈥渙f鈥� and 鈥渁nd鈥� things are more complicated still. A search for 鈥渇o鈥� scores 78,000,000 and 鈥渘ad鈥� scores 153,000,000, but both these words are acronyms as well as misspellings, so we don鈥檛 know what the true figure for typos is.
There are other complications too. David Critchard points out that some of the commonest typos may be ones that produce a real word. These will not be identifiable as typos in the FWSE 鈥� nor by any spellchecker. An example is 鈥渇rom鈥� for 鈥渇orm鈥�. Critchard found the phrase 鈥渢he human from鈥� repeated consistently in an art history book he read recently.
Barry Rein notes another flaw in the typo scores: a common word that is only rarely mistyped might get more hits on the FWSE than a less common word that is often mistyped. So to find out which words are most frequently misspelled whenever they are used we would need to give the figure as a ratio of the number of hits of the mistyped word to the total number of hits of the word correctly spelled.
More research is required, it seems.
THE IChemE 鈥� aka the UK鈥檚 Institution of Chemical Engineers 鈥� recently distributed a flyer for a hazard and operability (or HAZOP for short) analysis training course. Unfortunately, James Savery tells us, while the main title on page 1 did not contain any spelling mistakes, 鈥渢he message probably wasn鈥檛 quite what they had in mind鈥�. It read: 鈥淏ecome a competent an defective member of a HAZOP team.鈥�
TRYING to find out if 鈥渢ransitioned鈥� is a real word, Howard Haigh turned to a famous web search engine and was directed to . Here he discovered that he could download 鈥渁 free English thesaurus and dictionary鈥�.
Intrigued, he decided to read the licensing conditions. These told him that he could use the program free of charge indefinitely only if he took 鈥渁t most 4 flights (2 return flights) in any 12 month period鈥� and if he did not 鈥渙wn or regularly drive an SUV (sports utility vehicle)鈥�.
Haig assures us that happily he meets both these requirements, but they set him wondering if these are unusual licence conditions for free software. We鈥檇 like to hear if there are others like them.
鈥淒O THEY know something I don鈥檛?鈥� wondered Michael Richardson when he received an email from British Airways. It was headed 鈥淒r Richardson, last few days of our World鈥�.
Then he opened it, and found the next words were 鈥淥ffers Sale鈥�.