REAL LIFE NEWS: SEARCH AND REPLACE ERROR STRIKES TRIVIAL PURSUIT GAME
by Hazed
Search and replace is a powerful tool enabling you to make truly spectacular mistakes if you’re not paying attention – as people who bought a new version of the Trivial Pursuit board game found out over Christmas.
A London journalist/editor called John Lewis was playing the game with his family when he came across a very strange question. It was about the 2008 film Australia, which starred Nicole Kidman… and an actor by the name of Hugh Jackilometresan. Who he?
Lewis said, “As an editor, I also immediately guessed how it had happened.” A “cavalier find-and-replace command” had been used to replace ‘km’ with ‘kilometres’. So Jackman became Jackilometresan.
He found another error in the pack, where ‘kg’ had been replaced by ‘kilograms’ – resulting in the question: What U2 song plays in the ‘backilogramsound’ of the famous Friends episode where Ross tries to get Rachel back after they were on a break?
Whoops!
