Every Friday’s post is a collection of typos or grammatical errors I’ve spotted throughout the week. Sometimes they are things I find while out and about and sometimes they are things I find on the Internet. If you are anything like me, these typos drive you crazy, especially when they come from people who should know better.
Retired professional basketball coach and player Phil Jackson tweeted for the very first time this week. Here’s what it looked like:
11 champ;ipnsikp[ ringhs
— Phil Jackson (@PhilJackson11) March 27, 2013
What he meant to say was “11 championship rings.”
His first tweet, which was almost unreadable, was retweeted almost 27,000 times and favorited almost 12,000 times. Of course, the fact that this is a major celebrity’s first tweet, and let’s admit, is pretty funny, is partly what made these numbers possible. But, the fact remains that a tweet that is full of typos brought huge amounts of attention to the account and was spread across the social network like crazy.
The neat thing is, Jackson’s tweeting, or public relations team, didn’t stop there. The typo-laden tweet was left on the account and followed by a second tweet, the very next day:
Much better http://t.co/6edST6FAjG
— Phil Jackson (@PhilJackson11) March 28, 2013
The video response pokes fun at the original tweet and Jackson and then asks viewers to follow the account. As of this posting, Jackson has more than 178,000 followers and has only tweeted twice.
The witty recovery is what makes this typo’s success possible.