Church bulletin bloopers--actual mistakes or made up?

[DawnStorm]

The 'bloopers' are hilarious, but c'mon! Surely the bulletins are proofed prior to copying.

[Starla]

I was a church secretary for a year. Another secretary there was in charge of the bulletin, but she always had me proofread it for her. She swears that, when she was a secretary for another church, she let "Do You Like to Sin in the Shower?" get through to the real bulletin. I can't imagine why she'd make that up, but I never really believed her either. The story has been around for way too long.

[hambubba]

Didn't make the bulletin, but almost!

When I was the "maintenance guy" at my former church, I left a note attached to a receipt in the office for the secretary to pass on to the treasurer. Note read:

"Van Battery died."

She was concerned that she didn't know this church member, and asked the pastor what she should put in the bulletin.

We laughed for years.

[Spam & Cookies-mmm]

Originally Posted by DawnStorm

The 'bloopers' are hilarious, but c'mon! Surely the bulletins are proofed prior to copying.

No one proofed the bulletins I typed when I was church secretary. I ran spell check, and looked over them for mistakes. I'd still miss one now and then, and some church member would call me on Monday to tease me about it.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by DawnStorm

The 'bloopers' are hilarious, but c'mon! Surely the bulletins are proofed prior to copying.

I've found typos in books published by major publishing houses. Someone has presumably proofed (not to mention edited) them.

[PrincessLeia]

There were bloopers in my church's bulletin once when whoever was using spellcheck to proofread it accepted all of spellcheck's suggestions. One item in the bulletin included a list of people (including my dad), and most of the last names were spelled wrong.

[Not_Done_Living]

My mother used to do the weekly bulliten for her church when i was younger.
They didn't have word processors back then (or laser printers) and she used a manual typewriter and special paper. If she made an error she would have to restart.

She would sometimes make errors at the middle to bottom of the page... and just shrug them off.

[RainyDaze]

Originally Posted by DawnStorm

The 'bloopers' are hilarious, but c'mon! Surely the bulletins are proofed prior to copying.

What 'bloopers' are you referring to? Were any supposed to be listed in the first post? If so they are not showing up for me.

[Eve MG]

I don't see any bloopers listed either, RainyDaze, I just figured she meant the ones that come around in email frequently, like the ones on this page.

I can see where some are just typos, but it seems that some of the ones on the page I linked are a little too convenient. ("Angels We Have Heard Get High"??) When there is more than one person in the office, they usually get proofread (in my experience), but in some churches there is no staff other than the pastor, who serves as the bulletin typist as well. And I know for me, it's very hard to proofread my own work, I tend to skim it over because I know what it says and is supposed to say.

[RainyDaze]

Thanks for the link. Some of those were hilarious.

Hi everybody! I'm new here--this is my very first post!

I can vouch for the fact that sometimes a blooper will slip through, and it can be a real lulu! The ones we had were printed on a home computer by a member, so there was no one else doing any proofing. One week, he let a real dandy slip in!

We were planning a fish fry at a nearby park located at the Claiborne Lock and Dam. Announcements for the event were printed a few weeks in advance. Much to his chagring, one of these announcements got some big laughs and resulted in much teasing for our bulletin printer.

He wrote that the social was going to be held at the Claiborne Lock and DAMN.

[LyndaD]

My mom was the church secretary when I was growing up. The bulletin and newsletter were proofed by other church members who volunteered. I can see some errors slipping through, but not all.
Our church bulletin is put together by the pastor's wife. It often has mistakes. I have offered to proof, but haven't been asked, so I just grit my teeth as I read it.

[Tantei Kid]

Originally Posted by DawnStorm

The 'bloopers' are hilarious, but c'mon! Surely the bulletins are proofed prior to copying.

I'd say it's a little of both. Mostly the ones that are typos such as sin/sing have surely happened somewhere and it isn't unlikely that some on the list like that were real. Of course the vast majority of typos will be boring, but it stands to reason that with the tens of thousands of churches with monthly/weekly bulletins, some of the typos will end up "making sense".

As one who was in charge of our church bulletin for a while. I can tell you that mistakes did get through. None of mine were that good (other than one about worshiping doG).

With all of the churches and all of the bulletins out there over all these years, I think you do approach the infinite monkeys on a typewriter stage. So I bet you could find each and every one on SOME bulletin SOMEWHERE at SOMETIME. However, I don't think the Library of Congress keeps records of all bulletins (and if so, I never sent any of mine to it), so doing the research might be difficult.

I KNOW my friend's church had a jail choir. They were always behind a few bars and looking for a key....

My father typed and printed the bulletin for the church that we attended when I was a kid. He attributed a rather stately old woman as an "organism" in stead of an "organist" for a particular piece of music. Technically it was true.

[DadOf3]

Originally Posted by EarhornJones

My father typed and printed the bulletin for the church that we attended when I was a kid. He attributed a rather stately old woman as an "organism" in stead of an "organist" for a particular piece of music. Technically it was true.

Think how much more embarrased he'd have been had he left out the "ni".

[DawnStorm]

Back in my medical library days, we got an article request from someone stationed at the Pentagon. The name of the library was Stitt Library, but the envelope was addressed to the Shitt Library. We all got a big kick out of it and when we saw the person some weeks later, we ribbed him about it and said we hoped it wasn't a comment on our service. It wasn't, just a typo that slipped by. The person was really embarrassed when we showed him the envelope though. :o

[Izzy Quigley]

One of my professors recently told me that she'd been proofreading a letter written by another professor, who is retiring. It seems that he narrowly missed telling various members of the faculty that he didn't want any "pubic recognition".

[Elwood]

My grandma still types (as in on a typewriter, not a computer) her church's bulletins and no, they are not proofread beyond what she does herself. To my knowledge, she has never made a story-worthy mistake, but small or rural churches aren't as likely to have extensive proofreading as modern megachurches (or megachurch wannabees. One of my former churches spent thousands of dollars a year on a copier lease to make bulletins and then went further and hired a graphic artist and printing company, all for fewer than 100 bulletins a week.

[Starla]

Originally Posted by Elwood

One of my former churches spent thousands of dollars a year on a copier lease to make bulletins and then went further and hired a graphic artist and printing company, all for fewer than 100 bulletins a week.

Wow! During the year I was a church secretary the church went making 800 bulletins to making 1,200 and still ran out most Sundays. They had a nice copy machine, but it took extensive research and more than one proposal to convince the Administrative Pastor to buy a folding machine. What finally convinced him was laying out how much money per hour the church was paying us to fold bulletins and mass-mail letters. Once he realized how quickly the machine would pay for itself, he couldn't buy it fast enough!

It was still generated on Microsoft Publisher.