Friday, July 8, 2011

When Cakes Need Copy Editors

Friday, July 8, 2011

People often bemoan the fact that we don't have spell check for cakes, but as every writer knows, spell check doesn't catch everything.

After all, this IS spelled correctly:

I once participated in a Rock-A-Thon when I was a teenager: a group of us rocked in rocking chairs for eight hours straight to raise money for charity. Now, if I'd had the option to rock a thong, instead?

Um. Yeah, I would've stuck with the rocking chair.


They wish, baker. They wish.


Calling your boss "sexy" is a risky endeavor at the best of times - but it certainly doesn't help when the baker forgets a letter in "sexiest."

But hey, it's just a tiny mistake. The rest of the spelling is perfect!*


Bakers, take note: there is a difference between "inquire" and "imply." Don't worry, though; mixing the two up would only be a problem when discussing potentially controversial things. You know, like medication or something.


Oops.


And finally, when Steve and Marcus were planning their joint birthday party, they went with a Back to the Future inspired "Enchantment Under the Sea" theme - naturally.

One question, guys: Why wasn't I invited?

They ordered a cake with "Enchantment Under the Sea" written on it - and when the baker misspelled "enchantment" on the order form, Marcus immediately began hoping for a Cake Wreck.

Well, they did get one, but not in the way he expected. See, apparently the baker mistook "the sea" to mean the cake's deco pack, and...well...

You must admit: as wrecks go, this is kinda awesome.


Thanks to Ashli D., Ann Marie P., Erika T., Shea, & Marcus H. for being awl-around grate guise.

*Note: Sarcasm.
Jules AF said...

Chest club! It's like it was made especially for me.

SuBee said...

You have to be young to rock a thong. I wish everyone would just remember that.

A.J. said...

I was fully prepared for there to be a giant C and the word Enchantment written under it. LOL.

Amy'sMom said...

Some states have implemented rules that make it illegal to discuss birth control freely. Planned parenthood is now "implying" that they can provide such services. We live in troubled times

BTW, if you require birth control pills, the Starship Contracepto will be sent to your home planet to help guide you.

WV: Toomaxy-If you're toomaxy, you shouldn't try to rock a thong.

Docbanger said...

On cake Number 3. What does “Dexist” mean? Does it means prejudice againsts Dexes?

SuBee said...

I love the Enchantment Under cake.
The sea is implied- and I must say, much more subtly than the birth control on cake two.

saraezzyk said...

am i the only one to notice that world is spelled wrong? lol

Snugbug said...

They didn't spell "Planned Parenthood" correctly (left the "ed" off of Planned) and "Imply about Birth Control" was most likely a reference to the type of decoration requested for the cake and not something that was supposed to be written on the cake.

Sharyn said...

WV: hoolamen -- Steve and Marcus were a couple of hooligans who rocked thongs, ogled the chest club, and implied about birth control with their sexist boss. Now that they've grown up, they're hoolamen who have us all under their enchantment.

Anonymous said...

@SuBee: But not too young.

Is "Wolds" preceded by an inverted exclamation point like in Spanish, or is the company named iWold(s)?

Harley Granny said...

I'm a long time lurker...but the sexist spelled "world's" wrong too. I'm so addicted to this site lol.

Gary said...

I have a feeling the Youth Rock-A-Thong and the Chest Club may be the same group-- or at least they should have joint meetings.

Recipes In Review said...

That birth control cake, I mean, I wish there were words to describe it...

Jackie

Bri said...

These are hilarious and the Rock A Thon sounds awesome! And now I would like some cake.....

M. Dale said...

Though we often blame mistakes on English not being the baker's first language, I think that must actually be the case for cake number three. Is there a story to go with it? I imagine it was a cake ordered in another country for an American company. Am I close?

Anonymous said...

The last cake, whadda we call it? A reverse Underneath That?

mel said...

I bet they would raise a lot if the Youth Rock-a-Thong, the Chest Club and Plan Parenthood all co-sponsored a fundraiser, MC'd by the sexist CEO.


wv-releg: (verb) what table repairers do.

Sara said...

Thank god no Birthday cakes today, just-your-run-of-the-mill promotional cakes;....hummm, chest club (aw,no chest hair on it), is that like hair club for men?

Gween said...

You gotta give that last cake's decorator a bit of credit for thinking 'outside' the box.
Sort of.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure that the kit used on that last cake is "Finding Nemo" themed, anybody else getting that vibe?

sendingtheclowns said...

Enchantment cake isn't FINISHED yet, that's all!
The wreckorator was JUST ABOUT to add the next line/word (lovely script, btw) when her/his way-serious food-additive allergy kicked in, Big Time. Her/his nose began to run (also Big Time). She/he was just about to drop everything and run for her/his allergy meds, but something else was about to drop first...uh-oh...uh-oh...
OH, NO!!!



=^e.e^=

Loo-E Loo-I said...

LOL - those are great!

I've had to type letters at work and my favorite mistake was "bust" duct (bus). "But boss, I spell-checked..." Good thing he has a great sense of humor!

wv: frablat: 1) A type of horn from a Dr. Seuss book. 2) Noise similar to kersplat.

Maureen said...

"Enchantment Under"!! "Chest Club"!!! Bwahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Carol P said...

I think the G on Thong seems to be an afterthought--look how it's squeezed in there, and the color sequence of the lettering would call for yellow.

Anonymous said...

Oh good god, do people not even THINK about these things???

Donna said...

Dory! I see Dory on the last cake!!

Unknown said...

"Starship Contracepto" LOVE IT!!! LOL! (thank you Amy's Mom)

Stephanie said...

Only good thing about the "thong" mistake is that it's not entirely impossible to fix. Might have a little ding on the white frosting, but at least you can remove the excess letter.

Teni said...

Call me crazy, but I think the birth control one may have started out as a "to do" list. Especially if the word was meant to be enquire/inquire. So the person who took down the order was planning to go to Planned Parenthood, wrote it own so s/he wouldn't forget, then the phone rang with an order and s/he didn't have any other paper to write it down on... And the rest is history!

WV: thrette. A threat made by a French woman,

sendingtheclowns said...

Man, if ever there were a better reason to "PLAN PARENTHOOD," that birth control cake is it.

Someone in management at that store/bakery should gather their "help" together and Imply about learning how to read, write, and SPELL.


There's something frankly creepy/perverted about putting the words "youth" and "thong" in the same sentence, just in case that isn't an actual mistake. (Ya never know, these days!)

And who knows? Maybe there really IS a CHEST CLUB. Made up of people who collect chests to put their chess sets in. Because they have a LOT of chess sets. Chess hoarders, maybe? Chest whoreders?
(sigh)
=^@.@^=

Vik said...

Also, it's "planned parenthood," not "plan parent hood"

Anonymous said...

To me, a real wreck is a mistake you didn't even think to mention because it's so unexpected, and the Enchantment one in particular certainly nailed that!

Uh, that pill package sort of "implies" birth control all right...

Sharon

D.B. Echo said...

If you had rocked a thong during a Rock-A-Thon, there's a chance you would have stuck TO the rocking chair.

I have a feeling you have to flip over the "Enchantment Under" cake to read the rest.

It could thave been worse:

C
------------
ENCHANTMENT

WVW: cimps. Chimpanzees of low intelligence.

Anonymous said...

As a copy editor, it's good to know spell check can't push me out of a job completely.

WV: ingiste - Some cakes are easier to ingiste than to read.

Jessica said...

My wv would make a good 80's themed cake wreck: sionse
She blinded me with sionse.

Tiffany in Topeka said...

If I were young enough to "rock a thong", I wouldn't want the grandma-inspired cake decor....

Just sayin'

Allison said...

Oh wow. I really hope that Youth Rock-A-Thong cake was for a church youth group... Maybe a little sadistic, I know, but still.

Anonymous said...

Ah, those were the days when I was still invited to the Chest Club. Now, after breast feeding three kids, I get frequent calls from the Deflated Balloon Club. Ho hum.

WV spebele - The bakers this round had problems when they tried to spebele words on these cakes.

Doughball said...

Hilarious as usual. Thanks.

Veronica Wald said...

What the heck is iWolds, as in "iWolds sexist CEO"?

Anonymous said...

Rock a thong? Chest club? High school sure sounds like a lot more fun now than when I was a kid. Why the high dropout rate?

How do we know iWolds' CEO isn't a sexist, hmmmm? Maybe that cake was to announce a class action suit. It all started when the CEO implied about birth control.

I kind of like the Zen minimalism of the "Enchantment Under" cake.

Ryan B said...

The Enchantment Under cake WAS done correctly by the bakery, except just like Marty McFly's picture of his family, part of it is disappearing because someone made some change in the past!
This comment has branded me as a geek.

Letitia said...

"Rock a Thong" and "Chest Club" are hilarious enough, but "World's Sexist CEO???" I must have died and gone to irony heaven...

Buffy said...

Where to begin?

#1. Birth control pills now come in a rectangular package, not a round one. Did a dude do the decorating? Or a post-menopausal woman who hasn't taken birth control in 30-some years?

#2. Frankly, I'm surprised the Enchantment cake didn't look like this:
The Sea
Enchantment

#3. @Amy'sMom: Starship Contracepto sounds like the inspiration for a new hit sci-fi series! Awesome!

Anonymous said...

Not to mention that it is Planned Parenthood, not Plan Parenthood. Easy mistake, though.

DJWildBill said...

The WOLD cake is from Harry Chapin's radio retirement home, no? It is to honor of his station's sexist CEO, si? I also noticed the inverted exclamation point at the start of the line so the cake decorator was Latin, tal vez? If so, then possibly Harry's radio station is a Mexican Radio and the cake was run through a wall of voodoo to get to Harry.

I am the morning DJ at W-O-L-D!!!


WV: Pleri - I looked at the dyslexic baker's cake's verbiage and it all began to get pleri and run off the sides.

Anonymous said...

Back to the Future + Finding Nemo= SO MUCH AWESpoOME :)

Anonymous said...

Why is there a pill between the Sat and Sun pill? This would be a really bad birth control pack!

Savannah said...

Lol, on the "sexist CEO" cake, "world's" is spelled "wold's". That didn't help things...

Savannah said...

Savvy

Herouth said...

So that explains it. They had to "imply" about birth control, rather than give it explicitly. That's the reason why they have that wonderful graphic. If the police asks, it's an Inca Calendar. What, Mr. Cop? You thought it was a packet of birth control pills? First, there are 22 "pills" in that packet. Second, ever tried swallowing parallelogram pills?

Craig said...

Are the extraneous quotes in "Youth" Rock-A-Thong implying some kind of ageist snark?

If only there had been an 'r' in worlds (an apostrophe would have completely exceeded expectations), we could have had a whole new meme: iWorld. That's a virtual world powered by Apple. Where 3rd party software vendors are extremely rare.

The sexist CEO probably founded the Chest Club. (Of course, the CEO could be a woman who likes men's chests. But that wouldn't be sexist in the PC lexicon.)

If the last one had had the single word, 'Enchantment' on it, it would have been perfect.

wv: outrig

Adorably Dead said...

Is that Dori on the Back to the Future cakewreck?

Anonymous said...

Hmmm... you know, considering thats airbrushing, it's really okay. You know, besides the plastis Dory and Marlin.

-Μαρία

Mel said...

That's it, I NEED a "chest club" cake for my going away party this weekend. My friends are all quite busty. Plus, we love cake!

Anonymous said...

@Amy'sMom
"Starship Contracepto" is a great name for a band.

tiny p elephant said...

DORI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Craig said...

@DJWildBill wins the band geek award.

wv: torick. That's how we roll.

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of Taylor Mali:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OonDPGwAyfQ

Abbey D said...

Ummm, on the third cake I started to think hey, are they coming out with a new iPhone app? or a new episode of iCarly? and i dont remember whick cake, but I think it looks like a ufo. and the Rock.A,Thong, I didn't know rocks wore thongs...

Haiku Joy said...

Under Neat That C
Right "World's Sexiest CEO."
Czech four iSpelling.

DidoCarthage said...

My chess-playing husband was more disturbed by the 5 x 7 chess board than the misspelling. Just sayin'.

piggys20 said...

I read it too fast and thought you wrote that in a thong you would stick to the rocking chair...

vacuumboy9 said...

I'm Steve of Steve and Marcus. Thanks for immortalizing our party (in that fleeting kind of immortality that is found on the Internet).

That is indeed Dori on our cake (and Marlin too). We asked for something with fish, to tie in with the "Enchantment under the Sea" theme, and they gave us Finding Nemo. That was the least of our problems.

Arlene said...

Lol rocking and thong do not belong together. Heck thongs should be burned. Chest club now that is a good one and I am sure that would be a popular club in any high school lol. Ahhh the evils of wreckerators.

jeliecam said...

@ anony - that Taylor Mali video was GRRRRREAT.

The Chest Club cake was for racers. Being over 50, there is no chance of us crossing the finish line first. An enhanced Playboy Bunny would win the checkered flag by a "nose".

wv: sathsibl -You would think it was sathsibl to spell correctly.

mimi said...

I just feel the need to say, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, what do we do we swim, swim la la la la..."

Maybe Dori decorated the last cake.

Who's there?

Eleanor said...

A rock-a-thon *in* a thong. Now how about that for discomfort.

Julie said...

@Anon at 4:01--the space between Saturday and Sunday on the birth control pills is actually the little hole where you pushed the daily pill out, you rotated the dial every day to a new pill and pushed it out the back. However, you ARE right that it's a bad pack of pills--it's missing an entire WEEK's worth of pills! There should be 21 greens and 7 pinks. Not a very good way to plan your parenthood.

WV: reacke. How cake decorators would misspell the word "wreck".

Micheles_kitchen said...

In Australia 'rocking a thong'has a different meaning,thongs are that stylish piece of footwear known as a flip flop.Love your blog have spent many hours reading while i should have done other stuff,
love michele from down under

Anonymous said...

I just had that Finding Nemo cake at my son's 2nd birthday party back in May! It was a pretty nice cake and not Wreck worthy. However, I did print up instructions to attach to the order requesting that the writing be in orange (because it was on a blue background). I even made the font orange. They still did the writing in blue. Sigh...