misheard, mistyped and misunderstood: birmingham place name gaffes

misheard

The idea for these button badge mock-ups came as a result of a number of experiences since I moved to Birmingham. The theme: the oddities of interpretations of place names in Birmingham derived from typos, spell-check suggestions, mispronunciations and adolescent mischief.

Once upon a time, you could type ‘Perry Barr’ into a more decrepid version of Word (you know, the version that introduced that interfering paperclip who makes unwelcome appearances at inopportune moments), and dear old spellchecker would suggest ‘Perky Bra’ as a suitable alternative. I know of someone who wasn’t paying enough attention when using the spellcheck facility and inadvertantly replaced the text with the suggestion, much to the entertainment of the organisation who received the correspondence.

Telephone conversations are usually the worst culprits for these erronious word warps: having to explain that Acocks Green is a name and not a statement; discovering that saying the word Edgbaston is particularly troublesome if you have a heavy cold; Bournville being particularly tricky for some to hear.

Sometimes, speedily penning letters has equally entertaining results in terms of spellings. You’ll see this in the Kings Heath and Rubery badges.

The final misdemeanour: teenagers on a bus, who decided to rename Selly Oak.

Of course, the badges don’t reflect the places. What they do hopefully reflect is the ability of people to unknowingly twist local language and entertain others with it.

Please share any other place name gaffes you’ve encountered!