Thread: Oops!

By Ron Charles (Washington Post Books)

The Wordle craze has been particularly lonely for those of us who can’t spell. We suffer in silence – like the “b” in “subtle.” We live in terror that some perfectly pleasant gathering might suddenly veer into a game of Scrabble. We’re ecasperated erratated mad about being repeatedly told, “It’s spelled just like it sounds.” I still remember being paralyzed on a test in 4th grade trying to sound out the word “of.”

So I felt a little schadenfreude when I read this week about a Chinese firm that manufactured more than 10,000 commemorative tea cups, mugs and plates to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee — the 70th anniversary of her reign on Feb. 6. Due to a spelling error, each one of these 10,000 dishes is printed with the phrase “Platinum Jubbly.”

​​Wholesale Clearance UK Ltd. in Dorset is now offering the dishes as potential gag gifts to some daring retailer (details). “Apart from the obvious gimmick factor, there is an abundance of fantastic things you could do with these,” the website says. One suggestion: “Take-up plate spinning as a hobby.” I'm not sure I could use more than a dozen misspelled commemorative plates, but it would be fun to set them out.