Faux-ladelphia

Agence France-Presse (AFP), the oldest news agency in the world, made a serious faux pas attempting to spell the name one of the biggest cities in the U.S. in a recent article recapping a Bulls/76ers game. The spelling error was submitted by reader Stan Kost and is his second submission to the Proofreader. As you can see in the highlighted screen shot below, AFP misspelled the birthplace of the United States "Philaphia." "The best part is that it's gone unchecked for three days," noted Mr. Kost in an e-mail.

Indeed it has and don't look for it to be changed anytime soon. The above screen shot was taken from this Yahoo! News article posted on April 9th, but the mistake exists in many other places too, such as in this story on MSN Sports. Evidently, editors at places like Yahoo! News and MSN don't read the copy in wire articles before they print them.

And how about AFP? It's not like they screwed up some obscure American slang or something. They neglected to include three key letters in Philadelphia, home of the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and the World Champion Phillies. And Ben Franklin, one of the most famous Philadelphians ever, was an ambassador and great friend to France. You'd think they wouldn't disgrace his legacy by bungling the spelling of the name of the city where he became famous and is buried. This is a huge mistake that never should've been made. Shame on zee French.

The Proofreader thanks Stan Kost for submitting the mistake.