THERE were red faces over at the editorial offices of the Mormon Daily Universe when the governing body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were described in a photo caption as “the Quorum of the Twelve Apostates”.
The word that ought to have been used was “Apostles”. “Apostate” is defined by Encarta Encyclopedia as “somebody who renounces belief”.
All 18,500 issues of the edition had to be removed from shelves around the Brigham Young University campus earlier this month after it the blunder was discovered.
University spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said the typo, which replaced the intended word with a virtual antonym, was an “honest mistake” and that no university or church administrator has sought to punish those responsible for the error.
In a written statement, Brad Rawlins, chairman of the Communications Department, said the mistake was the product of human error not caught in a regular pre-publication review.
No disrespect to our church leaders was intended.
According to a BYU Newsnet article, the error occurred as a copy editor was conducting an automatic spell check of the page’s contents. The editor replaced a misspelled version of the intended word with the computer’s first suggestion – in this case, “apostate”.
An unfortunate typo that that has NOT been corrected appears on the Duchy Originals website. The company, known among “alternative therapy” sceptics as “Dodgy Originals”, was established by the Prince of Wales in 1990, and among its products is Echina-Relief Tincture:
A traditional herbal medicinal product used to relive (sic) the symptoms of the common cold and influenza type infections, based on traditional use only. Contains Echinacea Purpurea root.
Freethinker reader Dr James Merryweather, who drew our attention to this blunder, added:
The made-up term ‘Echina-relief’ probably most closely means relief from hedgehogs and sea urchins.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
April 20th, 2009 at 6:52 am
Well, typos happen to the best of us. I produce the newsletter for the Brighton and Hove Humanist Society, and once stated that we hold “regular pubic meetings”.
Some bibles have been similarly afflicted. The “Adulterous Bible†of 1631 omits “not” from Exodus 20:14, and replaces one word (“greatnessâ€) with two in Deuteronomy 5:24. The resulting translation of the King James Version read “Thou shalt commit adulteryâ€, and “The Lord hath showed us his glory and his great arse.â€
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_errata
April 20th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Not a spellcheck thing, this, but a similar foible of the computer, and it is this. There was a story within the past two or three years that told of the American Family Association, which eschewed the word “gay” in its publications and on its website, and insisted on “homosexual” instead. The find-and-replace function was therefore employed.
Consequently, there was this sprinter mentioned in part of its website who should have been called called Tyson Gay. Under the head “Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials”, it told of one Tyson Homosexual. And every subsequent occurrence of his surname was . . . well, you get the picture. Hilarious!
April 20th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Just maybe that dog has lost control of the spellcheckers and the lived has taken over. All the angles in heavy must be weeping buckets and Jessey Christopher must be wondering what it was all for. Maybe the Pipe in Rome could put in a good word with dog and get things sorted out. The chief Rabbit could put in a word for the Jews, the Daily Lament for the Buddwieserists and one of the Amens could speak for the Muslins and followers of Aslan. Bugger, the damned spellchecker thingies playing up again…!!!
April 20th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
I like the fact that they had to recall all the unsold copies of their rag rather than just printing a correction in the following issue. Presumably the Quorum are such a bunch of uptight, humourless twats that doing the latter would have been a serious problem. I would like to think that if a typo in the freethinker described some freethought worthy as, oh I dunno say, deeply religious when it should have read deeply irreligious, that the unintended victim would laugh it off and accept the forthcoming apology with good grace.
As for the deluded imbecile the Prince of Wales, just don’t get me started.
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:41 pm
I think it was a classic Freudian slip. The copy editor probably did not even know what an apostate is. After all religious people are rather blinkered.
And don’t get me started on that Charly either. PLEASE.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:00 am
I guess a character of Narnia is’nt as boring as you are. I think I agree.
April 26th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Laughed and laughed and laughed… Thanks, @Kev
April 26th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Glad to be of service…The whole episode brings to mind an occasion before we took our kids out of school when we attended an assembly. One of the teachers had painstakingly put together a bunch of readings for the kids to spout about various religions and how they all love each other. All went well until our son stepped forwards and started his piece about Islam. Teach had clearly not proof-read her work because for 'shiite muslims' the spell checker had altered it to …yes you guessed it ….'shitty muslims' Our son went on obliviously for nearly five minutes about shitty muslims and what they get up to. I did sugest that in the cause of fairness they should do an assembly about the Morons, Anna Baptists, Greek Authored Ox and Gee Overs witnesses…but the head teacher didn't seem to find it funny. Hey Ho!!