ROADS REPORT: A teachable moment

Oct. 1, 2010

Shlow down for the shcool

 

With recent reports showing that American students are lagging behind those in dozens of other countries in subjects like math and science, is it any surprise that their parents can’t spell?

 

Case in point: This past August a road crew in Greensboro, N.C., labeled a freshly paved section of road as a “SHCOOL” zone in giant block letters painted across two lanes of traffic.

 

Shlow down for the shcool

With recent reports showing that American students are lagging behind those in dozens of other countries in subjects like math and science, is it any surprise that their parents can’t spell?

Case in point: This past August a road crew in Greensboro, N.C., labeled a freshly paved section of road as a “SHCOOL” zone in giant block letters painted across two lanes of traffic.

The mistake, painted within eyesight of the Southern Guilford High School (and its correctly spelled sign), was discovered in the following days as residents began to ask if Shcool was some new Latin pop star and, if so, why she painted her name across their street.

The contractor in charge of the project sent a road crew back the following week to correct the misspelling before students returned to school wondering if Sean Connery was their new principal.

Sadly, this isn’t the first time a school-zone marking has been misspelled. A crew in Kalamazoo, Mich., came up with the same “SHCOOL” spelling back in 2007, and last year a Miami-Dade, Fla., team mixed up two different letters and came up with a hot new South Beach liqueur: “SCOHOL.”

A bridge too far for tourists

Music lovers travel to the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Art enthusiasts visit the Louvre. But where do bridge fans drag their families on vacation? Renate Theissi has the answer. The 39-year-old Austrian woman spent over $100,000 of her life savings to create the Brückenmuseum, a museum of bridges.

Theissi purchased dozens of old bridges and has hand-built detailed scale models of hundreds more, all of which are on display in her backyard. “I’ve never wasted my time with men or romance or anything like that,” Theissi explained to The Sun. “I’d much rather have an old timber framework bridge than a man.”

Theissi’s collection of bridge-building books now numbers over 4,000, and she even sleeps on a bed made from a bridge model.

As exciting as Theissi’s museum sounds, The Sun reports that visitor numbers have barely reached double digits.

License-plate debate

Andrew Ryan’s girlfriend said she was only trying to be romantic when she ordered a personalized license plate for her car bearing Andrew’s name. Space constraints prevented Lisa Marie Thompson from including Andrew’s entire name on the plate, so the 32-year-old New Zealand woman spent $700 to display his first initial, surname and place in her heart, which unfortunately spelled “ARYAN1.”

Thompson said she’s had the plate for four years and never noticed the inadvertent reference to Adolf Hitler’s master race. That is, until someone filed a complaint with the New Zealand Transport Agency.

“This is really offensive, for pretty obvious reasons,” the written complaint stated. “How can somebody even have a plate like this approved? I am baffled.”

However, transportation officials are not planning to recall the plate, because it would violate Thompson’s right to expression. When asked why she would want to keep the plate now that she knows it makes her look like a huge racist (not to mention the fact that she and Andrew have long since broken up), Thompson revealed that she was unaware of the significance of the word “Aryan.”

“I’ll look it up in the dictionary and see what it says, but I’ve had [the plate] for years and I don’t see the problem with it.” Meanwhile, Andrew is now rumored to be dating Susan Wastika down the street with the “SWASTIKA” plates.

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