Nursing Home Apologizes Over 'Unfortunate' Typo Spotted in Ad

A nursing home provider has issued an apology after one of its ads attracted attention online over its inclusion of an unintentionally ghoulish typo.

Typos might make for a source of ridicule online, but they are not evidence of the writing being ignorant or careless. As psychologist Tom Stafford previously explained in an interview with Wired, typos are a byproduct of the human brain attempting to distill complex thoughts into words and sentences.

"When you're writing, you're trying to convey meaning. It's a very high level task," he said. "We don't catch every detail, we're not like computers or NSA databases...Rather, we take in sensory information and combine it with what we expect, and we extract meaning."

This can result in blind spots, such as the mistake identified in an advertisement for Skelton Court Care Home, in Skelton, North Yorkshire, U.K., by a Twitter user posting under the hilariously appropriate handle slowbones.

In the ad, a young carer can be seen conversing with an elderly man, with the poster noting the fact "Skeleton Court" care home will be welcoming new residents from March.

Posting a picture of the ad, spotted at a local bus stop, slowbones joked that it was a "bold choice of name considering the age of many residents."

He wasn't alone in seeing the funny side in the typo. "I hope that doesn't relate to the staffing levels," one Twitter user joked with another quipping: "Talk about a bone of contention" with a third branding the mistake "unfortunate."

"I think they should embrace it—don't change the poster, change the name of the home," a fourth said. "We need more spooky care home names."

One suggested that the nursing home must be "opening on Halloween" given the name, while another imagined the Skeleton Court tagline as "Here for a good time, not for a long time."

Elsewhere, another fan joked that "Bud Lite, North Face and Adidas are all looking for fresh marketing talent so no shortage of opportunity for candidates of this caliber" with some loving the "spooky" vibes created by the new moniker.

Some, meanwhile, saw it as an important reminder of the value of proofreading.

"Make no bones about it, this is an epic copywriting fail...," one social media user commented, while another said: "Incredible. Proofreading is one of the most underrated tasks in advertising."

In a statement issued to ITV News in the U.K., Anchor, the company that runs Skelton Court Care Home, apologized for the mistake. "We're really sorry for the error in the ad," they said. "We're getting it removed as soon as possible and looking into how it happened."

Newsweek has contacted Anchor and slowbones for comment.

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