An embarrassing spelling mistake has been noticed on the Gaelic portion of the welcome sign at the ferry port of Bute in Scotland.
Bute’s Gaelic name is “Bhòid”, but by missing out the accent, the sign gives the Gaelic word for “penis” instead. This means that for years, visitors have been welcomed visitors to “the Beauty of Penis Island”. The sign, which has stood for around nine years, was recently photographed and shared on Facebook by Coinneach Combe, who is a Gaelic speaker, while visiting the island for the highland games.
When speaking to The Scotsman about the sign, Bute Councillor Len Scoullar said,
“It makes us look stupid… I’m not a Gaelic speaker but I would apologise to people who are Gaelic speakers and we will rectify it right away.”
According to the 2011 census, only 1.1% of Scots speak Gaelic, so the sign was probably never checked by a native Gaelic speaker. This situation, however, isn’t as rare as you would think. For example, many search engine optimisation (SEO) companies outsource their content generation to firms in countries like India and the Philippines, with the text often not being proofread by a native English speaker before being published.
Quality matters in website news feeds these days, so you need to be sure your material is thoroughly checked for errors and readability. Unfortunately, building your own in-house team is usually prohibitively expensive, while freelancers can sometimes be unreliable and inconsistent. Sourcing your material through news writing services, however, can get you regular pieces of good quality content without the upfront expenses.
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