Egypt has ruined my ability to spell.

My 4th grade teacher, Ms Mintz, would argue that I never could spell worth a darn (her words, not mine) but that is beside the point.

To explain, you will often see signs in “english” around Cairo and around the country at large. Many of the menus have “english” on them. You will see road signs in english.

My favorite road sign english story is this:

As you drive in from the airport into downtown, you will pass dozens of road signs. All identical. They all say

DOWNTOWN

with an arrow pointing straight ahead.

Well they are all almost identical. There is one that looks just like all the other ones except it says

DWONTWON

Exact same shape, size, font etc. The best part about this is that I must have passed that sign a dozen times before I realized it was misspelled.

Additionally you will see logos on clothing or other merchandise that are knock-offs. You will see

Deisel clothing

A t-shirt with “Cat” on the front  and “erpillar” on the back

John Deer

Jimmie Walker scotch ( I guess it is dyno-mite)

There are so many examples of this here.

Then there are the signs on business and shops. Like this one.

Love me some pustry.

Anyway, I no longer see misspellings. What is even worse is that I see words that are properly spelled and think

That can’t be right…