The Cupertino Effect: 11 Spell Check Errors That Made It to Press

Typos and other errors have always managed to find their way into print, even in the most august of publications. Take, for example, the case of the Wicked Bible, which accidentally omitted the not in "Thou shall not commit adultery" in 1631. But the dawn of word processing and its attendant spell check programs introduced a new kind of error, now sometimes known as a Cupertino. It's a sort of older cousin of the "Damn You, Autocorrect" error that infects even professionally edited text. It was named by workers for the European Union who noticed that the word cooperation often showed up in finished documents as Cupertino, the name of a city in California. Ben Zimmer tracked Cupertinos on Language Log for years. Here are some good ones.

1. Cooperation/Cupertino

"Co-ordination with the World Bank Transport and Trade Facilitation Programme for South East Europe will be particularly important in the area of trade facilitation and shall be conducted through regular review mechanisms and direct Cupertino."

From a European Agency for Reconstruction report, described here.

2. Cooperation/Copulation

"The Heads of State and Government congratulated SATCC for the crucial role it plays in strengthening copulation and accelerating the implementation of regional programmes in this strategic sector."

From a Southern African Development Community communiqué, described here.

3. Highfalutin/High Flatulent

"Clips of former President Bill Clinton and former candidate John Edwards are also used. 'Rhetoric is not enough. High flatulent language is not enough,' says Edwards from a debate appearance."

From a Wall Street Journal Blog, described here.

4. DeMeco Ryans/Demerol

Names are particularly susceptible to the Cupertino effect.

"Because of an editing error, a sports article in some copies on Sunday about the University of Alabama's 6-3 football victory over the University of Tennessee misstated the given name of a linebacker who is a leader of the Alabama defense. He is DeMeco Ryans, not Demerol."

From a correction in The New York Times, described here.

5. Muttahida Quami/Muttonhead Quail

"The opposition blames the government and the pro-government Muttonhead Quail Movement (MQM), which runs Karachi, for the violence."

From Reuters.

6. Refudiate/Repudiate

Cupertinos also result from the correction of errors you don't want corrected.

"The fact that she uses a hand-held device to write her Twitter messages without checking by her staff has led to errors before, such as calling on moderate Muslims to 'repudiate' plans for a mosque near ground zero in New York."

From the Telegraph, described on Language Log here. As Zimmer notes, repudiate is the correct word; Palin had actually used refudiate.

7. Truthiness/Trustiness

"On his regular feature 'The Word,' Mr. Colbert routinely mocks the kind of anti-intellectual populism perfected by Fox News. 'Trustiness' was his word of the day, he told viewers with a poker face, sneering at the 'wordanistas over at Webster's' who might refute its existence. 'I don't trust books,' he explained. 'They're all fact and no heart.'"

From The New York Times, described here. The word Colbert used was Truthiness.

8. Sua Sponte/Sea Sponge

Foreign words are also common victims of Cupertino—in this case, Sua Sponte, the Latin legal term for "of one's own accord."

"An appropriate instruction limiting the judge's criminal liability in such a prosecution must be given sea sponge explaining that certain acts or omissions by themselves are not sufficient to support a conviction."

From a legal brief in a San Francisco appeals court, described here.

9. Doro Wot, Awaze Tibs/Door Wot, Aware Ties

"An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to the Ethiopian dish doro wot as door wot. Additionally, the article referred incorrectly to awaze tibs as aware ties."

From a correction in The New York Times, described here.

10. Socialite/Socialist

Here's one noted on Regret The Error, a good source for Cupertino hunters.

"An early version of an Associated Press story about the David Petraeus resignation and ensuing scandal mistakenly referred to Jill Kelley as a 'socialist' rather than a socialite."

11. Prosciutto/Prostitute

One of those examples that seems too good to be real, this was posted on an Italian food forum in 2000, and it's still there.

"Crumble bread sticks into a mixing bowl. Cover with warm water. Let soak for 2 to 3 minutes or until soft. Drain. Stir in prostitute, provolone, pine nuts, 1/4 cup oil, parsley, salt, and pepper. Set aside." Yum!

From a recipe for Braciola, described here.

A version of this article first ran in 2013.