Even a small mistake or typo, at times, can drastically distort the text, stripped of its meaning, or vice versa, giving it a new, sometimes quite comical, meaning. It would seem that this is not unusual: we are all human and all make mistakes. But there are times when the price of such a small mistake can be very expensive.
Some of these cases, you will see later.
NASA lost a hyphen
The damage: $ 80 million
Hyphen - not the most important punctuation mark, but in 1962, his absence in the code onboard computer cost NASA $ 80 million. We are talking about the launch of the guide to the Venus spacecraft "Mariner-1", which is due to small errors lost control and was killed by 293 seconds after launch. British writer and scientist Arthur C. Clarke wrote a few years, Mariner 1 was "to destroy the most expensive hyphen in history."
The case with the old ale
Damages: $ 502,996
The missing letter "r" in the name of the 150th ale cost the seller more hapless half million dollars. Several collectors know that the auction should set a rare bottle of drink called «Allsopp's Arctic Ale», but could not find it, because the seller dropped the title one letter "p" and sold «Allsop's Arctic Ale». As a result of the auction was attended by only two candidates, and the bottle went for $ 304. Buyer corrected the mistake and immediately sold the bottle for 503,300 dollars.
Error in the Bible that changed the meaning of the commandments on the opposite
Damage: $ 4590
In 1631, English printers released the Bible with an error in the seventh of the ten commandments - was missing particle "not". In their presentation commandment was the sound as "adultery." This Bible dubbed "Bible adulterers" publishers were fined three thousand pounds, and had to destroy all copies.
Pasta with racist bias
Damages: $ 20,000
Damages: $ 20,000
In the cookbook «Penguin», released in Australia, was a recipe pasta dish which was recommended spice "freshly ground black people» («freshly ground black people»). It turned out that the cause of the scandal was the prescription error corrector, and in this place means "freshly ground black pepper» («freshly ground black pepper»). Revoke already sold did not, but not in time to disperse 7,000 copies were destroyed and reprinted again.
The sale of shares at low, low prices catastrophically
Damages: $ 340 million
Damages: $ 340 million
In December 2005, the Japanese company trader Mizuho Securities has received an application for the sale of one share at a price of 610,000 yen per share. He confused the number of shares and the price and, as a result, put 610,000 shares at 1 yen. This error is caused chaos in the market, the collapse of the Nikkei index, and led to the resignation of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Damage estimated at $ 340 million.
Record an expensive advertising campaign
The damage: $ 50 million
The damage: $ 50 million
In 2007, a car dealer Roswell (New Mexico) came up with "brilliant" advertising trick: to produce and distribute 50,000 lottery tickets, one of which was winning a thousand dollars. But the company, which was to print tickets, mistakenly placed the winning them everything. That is total win was $ 50 million. Unable to pay the debt, car dealer promised to marry each winning ticket on the gift certificate valued at five dollars.
Exotic becomes erotic vacation
The damage: $ 10 million
The damage: $ 10 million
Several years ago, a California travel company «Sonoma» decided to place your banner in the directory "Yellow Pages." When advertising began to bear fruit, they realized that cruelly mistaken. Instead of "exotic travel" in the handbook were promised 'erotic'. As a result, the firm was not that popular, they expected. Printing mistake cost $ 10 million, which sued them travel company.