Misspelled Milipitas (sic) Sign on Highway

NBC Bay Area ^ | Thursday, May 9, 2013 | Lisa Fernandez and Mariane Favro

[nickcarraway]

There are typos. And then there are typos.

Caltrans could have sure used spellcheck when putting up a new green highway sign Wednesday night on the northbound side of Interstate Highway 880.

It's misspelled.

Instead of directing people to Milpitas off state route 237, the sign directs them to "Milipitas," with an extra "i."

An alert motorist with excellent spelling skills notified NBC Bay Area about the mistake on Thursday. NBC Bay Area then alerted Caltrans, who said the news agency was the first to report it, according to spokesman Bernard Walik.

Before noon, the misspelling was covered in white. The sign will be fixed within two weeks. He said there would be no cost to taxpayers, because the contractor who made the mistake will have to remedy it on his own.

This is not the first misspelled roadsign. Google images is full of sings with extra "t's" and missing "e's." School was spelled "shool" and "temporarily" was spelled with two "ll's."

Check out some in these images below.

[philled]

Reminds me of an old Beetle Bailey cartoon. Sarge is pointing and telling the owner his “Douhgnut Shop” sign is misspelled. The last frame shows Sarge leaving, munching on a big bag of doughnuts, and the owner saying “you wouldn’t believe how much business that sign brings in” to the person behind the counter.

[Regulator]

English as a Second Language is common among state workers in California now and it’s entirely normal to see phonetic spellings...which are usually wrong, but do sound the way they say it.

Just one more charming aspect of being here in the “New America”.

[mikrofon]

"Google is alive ... with the sings of mispell ..."

[dainbramaged]

I worked for the State of Alaska DOT for 25 years and we had one sign sent from the vendor that read: BIEK XING. It was never installed, since our guys could actually read.

[nickcarraway]

But then you had a rash of BIEKs being hit by cars.

[Rusty0604]

My daughter had included directions to her wedding, which was at the beach, in the invitations, when her (then) fiance caught that she had written “follow the sings” instead of signs. He was so upset that something like that almost went out to his family they had a big fight over it. The wedding went on just fine.

[Fiji Hill]

California actually has what is probably the best highway signage of any state in which I have driven. Highway signs in California keep drivers aware of what highway they are on, what direction they are going, and how far it is to communities and route junctions down the road. In California, I don’t recall ever having gotten lost because of the lack of highway signs or trying to follow signs that were ambiguous, misleading or confusing.

In my experience, New Hampshire is the worst state for highway signage, followed by Maine, Pennsylvania, Texas and Nevada. States in which I have experienced good signage include Arizona, Colorado, Ohio, Vermont and Virginia.

[Fiji Hill]

"Baber shop"? Perhaps the shop was owned by someone named for the founder of the Moghul Empire

[justiceseeker93]

Because of the dumbing down of education that has been going on in the public schools for decades, it’s pleasantly surprising that misspellings on highway, street, and other traffic signs aren’t more common than they seem to be. After all, the dedicated public servants that make the signs are most often products of those dumbed down schools.

[Libloather]

[muawiyah]

Spellchek makes all of us jeniuses!

[SaraJohnson]

Over, and over, and over again.

[Revolting cat!]

[Revolting cat!]

[glennaro]

Now that thar’s funny ... I don’t care what ya say!

[Cyber Liberty]

California actually has what is probably the best highway signage of any state in which I have driven. Highway signs in California keep drivers aware of what highway they are on, what direction they are going, and how far it is to communities and route junctions down the road. In California, I don’t recall ever having gotten lost because of the lack of highway signs or trying to follow signs that were ambiguous, misleading or confusing.

Last time I was in CA, they had half of the light bulbs for the signs turned off, so you could barely read the most excellent signage while trying to negotiate the traffic that was poorly lit because half of the highway lights were turned off. It was a very frustrating and dangerous situation.

[CatherineofAragon]

LOL

[EinNYC]

Before you make your next smug and STUPID remark about public education, consider this: the sign may well have been made by an illegal working in the sign shop. Take up their misspelling with the Messycan public school system.

[justiceseeker93]

Is that a real photo of football field in # 30 or a cartoonist’s drawing or painting?

[justiceseeker93]

Please don't feel personally offended. IIRC, you are a teacher or retired teacher, so I understand where you are coming from. The dumbing down of public education in general is a fact, however. (A relatively few public schools aren't tarnished by it.) It has relatively little to do with the quality of the teachers, more so the quality of the pupils - especially so-called “minorities” - and the political correctness of the school systems in dealing with them.