Spelling and grammar on toys

Poor spelling and grammar are bugbears of mine.  I’m definitely of the view that the written word should be correct, with the end result being that anyone reading it (and used to that language) should be able to easily understand and grasp the writer’s meaning.

No text speak or spelling, and really there should be no excuse given the availability of spell checks on computers (and phones) nowadays…although I do admit that writing quickly on my smartphone isn’t good when I forget to check, as the autocorrect is insane in not recognising the type of words I write.  It quite often ends up embarrassingly full of jumbled up rubbish.  Only on a phone is text speak suitable (or if quoting such a message!).

For me, it’s essential that N will be brought up reading and writing correct English.  I’d hope he’d also speak decently – no ‘wivs’ or the like, that’s just sloppy (my mum’s probably reading this and thinking back to her telling us ‘it’s water, not wa’er’ etc).

While he’s not learning letters and numbers on anything written yet, I do expect spelling in books, on toys and on anything he might come across to be spelt correctly.  But Sainsbury’s made a bit of a cock up with their new space water bottles for children.

I bought N a Sigg style bottle from Sainsbury’s the other day, thinking we could move on from having just the bog standard sippy cups when we’re out and about.  It was the only design choice, but I didn’t look at it closely until I was washing it when we got home…

To find that the rocket was now blasting ‘of’ rather than off.  Obviously N’s not going to use the bottle for learning words, but I do think that’s sloppiness by the supplier’s designer and approval stage to get that through without checking everything.

I’m now going to be checking everything I buy for spelling issues, especially as N gets older.

He’s happy with the bottle though – the only problem is that he wants to ride his bike carrying it, and there’s nowhere to tie some string from once the lid is opened.  It’s already got a few dinks on it due to it crashing against his bike, or being dropped.  Good job it wasn’t an expensive bottle!

What’ve you found amongst children’s toys, that had shocking spelling errors on it?  Or even just the worst spelling issues you’ve seen where people really should have known better.