posted on April 17, 2001 08:31:39 AM new
While cruising eBay this morning looking for Art Nouveau items, I discovered that I had to be a mind-reader to find them. (In addition to the spellings listed above, I also found "Noneau," which I think was a typo rather than a misspelling.)
A bit of advice, then, not so much to AW posters but rather to sellers in general: SPELLING COUNTS! Don't guess! Not every buyer is going to take the time to come up with innovative ways in which to spell an item in order to find all the listings for it. If sellers would consult a dictionary they would probably recognize more sales.
I used to e-mail sellers about misspellings, and always received thank-yous. But there are so many of them now that I've given up.
You've got a point! I must admit to having found some treasures via misspellings, most notably in the area of Jerusalem crosses, which I collect. (My favorite? Jarusasem, which is one of the "alternate" spellings I discovered a year or so ago.)
posted on April 17, 2001 11:54:43 AM new
I agree with Eventer! I'm still tickled over a first edition book I won for $1.95 because the author's name was misspelled. A small victory, perhaps, but still fun.
posted on April 17, 2001 12:05:57 PM new
And don't forget, Eventer, that all the pieces of the item are in tac, and that it's a genuine antique made in 1957 - during the height of Mr. Nouveau's artistic prime.
posted on April 17, 2001 01:27:49 PM new
And silverplate shows no "ware"!!
Speaking of silverplate, why don't sellers make the least effort to identify the pattern?!?!? Don't they realize they could get much more for their stuff???
posted on April 17, 2001 01:38:07 PM new
McBrunnhilde:
You are so right. Almost all silverplate (not to mention Sterling) has a maker's name on the back, so it's usually very easy to locate a pattern on the Internet. And some pieces even have the pattern name on the back.
I think laziness is the answer to your first question - they don't make the effort to identify a pattern because it's too much trouble.
Then, when nothing sells, they enter a thread on AW saying, "Is eBay bidding down or is it just me?"
posted on April 17, 2001 09:06:15 PM new
It's been mentioned before but IMO the funniest exercise is to look up 'suede' spelled as 'swade' and even worse 'swede'.
As in "Blue Swede Shoes".
Yeah, that Ole Larsson sure could cut the rug, you betcha!
Recent embarassing mispellings I've seen in auctions include
'flamengo' (as in flamenco dancer)
'lappis lasuly' (as in the blue semiprecious stone)
'georgous' (seen this countless times)
'medevil' (a devilish period of history, eh?)
'rinestone' (From the Rine river?)
'budder knife' (someone who was raised on margarine?)
'silk shantounge' (a fabric properly spelled silk shantung, yes, that one's hard, but i love the imagery the misspelling conjures up.)
it wouldn't be so bad except these are all search terms, and mispelling them is a lot more detrimental to an auction than just mispelling theirs or theres, or hear and here. These mispellings will cost you money!!
posted on April 17, 2001 09:49:59 PM new
I think Art Nouveau is related to that other fellow, Rod Iron. I wonder if Rod Iron is the guy who designed the shudders on so many dollhouses...
posted on April 17, 2001 11:19:40 PM new
Oh please have some compassion for those of us who have slippery fingers (and hit the wrong letters) or who have brains that take long vacations
Last night I pulled up the list of items I needed to send EOA notices on. I kept rubbing my eyes because I couldn't believe one of my booboos. A covered candy dish that the manufacturer called a sweetmeat dish was called a "sweatmeat dish" for seven glorious days...in the TITLE no less!!
posted on April 18, 2001 06:46:26 AM new
You're right, Brighid868: a dictionary is a seller's best friend! A dictionary ought to be everyone's best friend, but unfortunately it isn't.
How often have you seen misspellings in the graphics on the national evening news? I've seen a lot of them, so, Eventer, you're right, too: it isn't just eBay.
The posts in this thread have made me feel better because you are all so quick-witted and intelligent, and have posted some very clever remarks. But don't you think Americans have "dumbed down" a lot in the last few decades? The misspellings on eBay are a symptom of a much wider problem, which may or may not have its source in instant messaging and e-mail --- shoot-from-the-hip forms of communication in which speed, not accuracy, is what matters.
Do any of you remember your schooldays when a hand-written essay was graded for both content and spelling/grammar? Too many misspelled words and you got an F, regardless of how lofty the content of the paper was.
I'm the editor of a college alumni magazine, and I'm exposed to so many misspellings from people with doctorates that it would make your head spin. My alltime favorite was the use by an alumnus of the non-word "parapathetic" to describe a classmate who travelled all over the world (he meant "peripatetic".
Don't worry, Amy; I have compassion for people who make the occasional typo. Take it from me: proofreading your own work is hard, which is why it's helpful to have someone else read what you've written before you carve it in stone, be it on eBay or in a magazine.
