Swine FlU

SWINE FlU GONE TOO FAR, indeed!  Dylan C. from Cairo, NY explained that this was a 12th grader's class assignment.  Looks like swine flu is beginning to take a toll on lowercase L judgment ... and education.

This is not the first case of FlU we've caught here.

CHIlE

Lowercase L errors are usually ephemeral, written on cardboard, scribbled on scrap paper, or arranged with letter tiles on a roadside readerboard.  But once in a great while, a lowercase L makes a mark of permanence in the world, and it simply cannot be ignored.

Such is the case with the flawed 50-peso coins minted in Chile in 2008.  Surprisingly, no one noticed the misspelled CHIlE until just a few weeks ago.  Are people so used to writing lowercase L's among all uppercase letters that everyone thought this was passable?

This could be a result of mistaking the uppercase i stamp for an L stamp, or the error could have followed a poorly handwritten note that instructed the Chilean minter to cast the letters CHIlE in metal.  Or perhaps there was a conspiracy to inject the market for erroneous coins with fresh material.

Either way, this may be bigger than the Manhattan Project incident.

Thanks to Adrian Bailey for passing along this news!

ClAM SAUCE

Lisa B. found this LOBSTER ClAM SAUCE at Moby Dick Restaurant on the wharf in Santa Barbara. Funny that the author almost lost it with the weak uppercase L in SALMON, fully recovered with LOBSTER, and then totally fell apart with the ClAM.

This time it's PERSONAl

It's easy to ignore the lowercase L problem when it doesn't impact our lives in any way other than annoyance or mild confusion. But when someone attacks the family name, it hits too close to home for comfort. That's how Morgan Holzer felt when he read this sign being held by the car service driver at the airport. It reads like a McKenzie Brothers Canadian insult ... Take off, you HOlZER & MORGAN!

Hand-Drawn BlOCK lETTERS

Yitz Complicated shares this apropos trailer with lowercase L readers, figuring we like this kind of stuff.

AMARYllIS

I thought this piney picture would be appropriate for the holiday season. Outside the Tarzian Hardware store on 7th Ave in Park Slope, you can get PAPERWHITES! Somewhat less enthusiastically, you can find AMARYllIS, too. It looks like this might be a letter crunching case, since double uppercase L's would have pushed the writing to the edge of the chalkboard. Bonus points for the tittle on the uppercase i.

AlASKA FAIl

Here's a lowercase L that Sarah Palin would be proud of. This AlASKA backpack was discovered on the FAIl Blog by Kit, who points out:

1. An uppercase L was clearly substituted with an uppercase i.
2. The Canadian flag, for Alaska?
3. Since 1988?

Now, can someone explain the backpack to the left: L HEART NY?

CARlSBERG

LOOK! Peter W. explained how difficult it is to find lowercase L mistakes in his country, which is why this frothy CARlSBERG calamity discovered in St. Ives, Cambridgeshire in England was particularly rewarding.

Thrift Rift

Girl after my own heart, Shana G, submitted this curbside abomination, just in time for the holiday season. Found outside the church-run thrift shop on 96th Street in Manhattan — where I once bought a solid Samsonite wheeled luggage for $10! — Shana points out that HOlDAY could either be missing an uppercase i or an uppercase L, but either way the whole thing is a mess. I might suggest that the author, confused by his own faulty penmanship after carelessly scribbling a lowercase L, thought he had already written the uppercase i in HOLIDAY, and continued writing from that point.

And to think I once patronized this establishment!

TEFlON

Repeat offender outer Rimpy submits a new find from Home Depot, which is apparently becoming a depot for improperly used lowercase L's. I'm not sure how DuPont would feel about their TEFlON brand being misrepresented like this. Without the uppercase L, it's just plain old POlYTETRAFlUOROETHYlENE.