Originally published at: "Gradutate": important word misspelled on 600 stoles worn by high school graduates | Boing Boing
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To preface my comment … something about lawns…
Not only did the vendor mess up (how many people checked it before it went into production? - willing to bet it was only the one - the person who designed it. Quality standards today - Tch!)
But students (STUDENTS!) didn’t notice until after they’d already graduated? And parents are complaining? Parents should be complaining about the standards of education!
But then again…
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Also, I’d have thought they’d have a template and just drop the school name in.
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To be fair, our brains are pretty good at editing reality to match what we expect to see. I doubt anyone involved actually thought “graduated” was spelled with two t’s. They just saw what they expected to see. That’s not an excuse for the people who made them, since they should have a process in place to check and make sure they didn’t make a error, but I wouldn’t hold it against the students. I can completely understand how a lot of them could look at and not notice anything wrong because they were seeing exactly what they expected to see (and, seriously, who thinks they need to spellcheck their graduation gown?)
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Well, in all seriousness, neither do I, and your point about the vendor not having a process to catch this sort of error is on the nail.
But out of that many students I am somewhat gobsmacked not one of them spotted it much earlier. There’s usually at least one eagle-eyed, proof-reading, detail-minded type in any class of students.
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Perhaps they did, but kept it more of an in joke? But that’s my +25 year old out of school brain thinking that…with social media I’d expect it to hit whatever the “in” platform is at the moment (or TikTok) and be viral in a day or two.
In 97 my gen-X jaded self would have probably chalked it up to the adults being idiots. Ahh the joys of being young.
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Psh, the parents sound just like those whiny pedestrians.
Okay, okay, so there was an unfortunate mispeling. It happens.
What I really want to know is: how was the keming?
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It was fairly kemly.
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I think I would have found it hilarious. Sounds exactly like the kind of made up word teens will use as a slang joke.
And honestly it’s not terrible as far as made up words go. One is moving from orbiting one body (the family) to another (your own life, the rest of the world). So one is not just going up, one is changing gravitation. Therefore, gradutate is a perfectly cromulent combo word. Though graditate might be better.
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The school apologized and promised to replace the stoles, but parents were angry, feeling that the damage had already been done.
Like my mom used to say, “you wouldn’t spot it from a high flying airplane.” Be happy for your kid’s gradutation, for Pete’s sake.
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Ha I haven’t heard that but I like that phrase.
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I’m constantly amazed at the number of spelling and punctuation errors one sees on expensive, commercially produce signage. So this doesn’t really surprise me that much. You’d think professional sign makers would be good spellers and proofreaders, but the number of “typos” on signs in this world says it ain’t so. That’s before we even get to the reckless abuse of apostrophes.
As for the kids, I’m sure they noticed, laughed, started passing it around, then everyone was laughing, and it never occurred to them to tell an adult. That’s certainly what we would have done at that age. Another stupid thing the adults fucked up because adults fuck up everything. 
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I mean, I would have 100% worn this with pride. Of course, I wore second hand army fatigues and boots under my robes and put on my Vietnam-era helmet immediately after the ceremony.
A few years ago a Mexican restaurant in Iowa faced racist backlash for having a BLM sign out front and, instead of caving to the terrorists, they put up a sign saying “No Love, No Tacos”. I bought a t-shirt to support them that has the comma just above the gap right above where an apostrophe would incorrectly be in “Tacos”. It doesn’t get worn very often out of sheer embarrassment, even though on the original sign it doesn’t appear that way. Just a layout mistake, but it drives me nuts.
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But students (STUDENTS!) didn’t notice until after they’d already graduated?
That’s because most of the students were actually gradutating.
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For my senior yearbook photo, I submitted a professional quality, but “joke” photo of myself. The school tried really hard to convince me that I would later regret ruining the golden memories of highschool. 42 this year, 0 regrets. I agree with all here that the parents are likely ruining some good memorable fun for the kids.
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My congratulashins to the graduates.
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People who say stuff like that are people who peaked in high school. You couldn’t pay me any amount to go back and nothing could possibly tarnish (ie. make worse) my memories of that experience. Golden memories?! Puh-leeze. What high school do these people go to that isn’t hell.
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Nobody died. (And no one saw it from a high-flying or even a low-flying plane 
)
The manufacturer and the school administration have acknowledged the mistake and both have apologized.
The administration will mail out correct stoles along with the diplomas.
The graduating students now own a limited-edition collector’s item.
The students and families now have a story they can tell for the rest of their lives.
What’s not to be happy about?
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