[Sussex] The infamous Angling Hairbrush

[Geoff Teale]

Loz said:
---------
> One of the halls at university, Rathbone, comes up in M$Word 
> spellcheck as 
> "rat-hole"... Once again I think microsoft is trying to tell 
> us something... 

Back when I word for Rentokil Initial Group there was an infamous e-mail
that went out after being spell-checked without double checking the output.
It was full of strange phrases as it concerned correct procedures for
porters dealing with dead bodies in hospitals.  I cannot remember the full
text now (it ran to several pages of A4 that we pinned to the notice board).


One sentence was intended to read:

"If the deceased was known to be a practicing Jew, then it is important that
job details are emailed to East Grinstead before moving to coldstore."

.. due to bad typing and a particularly zealous spellchecker the resulting
sentence (which was sent to the Angel Harbour hospital administration and
key Initial Portering staff) read like this:

"If the diseased was known to be a practicle Jew, then it is important that
genitals are embalmed to the East instead before making coldslaw."

We in the corporate IT department came across this beauty when the director
who sent it came down to our office to ask if there was anyway we could call
the e-mail back.  This e-mail is universally known as the "Angling Hairbrush
E-Mail" as this is what the name of the hospital "Angel Harbour" came out of
the spellchecker as.

-- 
Geoff Teale
geoff.teale at claybrook.co.uk
 


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