Among the forms these reports take are these (with a sample of each):
“The Welfare Letter” (“In accordance to your instructions, I have given birth to twins in the enclosed envelope”); “The Accident Report” (“Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don’t have”); “Letters to the Army” (“I am glad to say that my husband who was reported missing is now dead.”); “Parents’ Excuses for Students” (“Please excuse Judy; she was in bed with gramps”); “That’s What you Dictated, Doctor” (“The patient refused an autopsy”); and “From Actual Court Records” (“Was that the same nose you broke as a child?”).
Other such hilarious error lists purport to be quoted from signs posted in foreign hotels, announcements printed in church bulletins, and students’ answers to examination questions. Some of the errors, of course,may really have been committed, but the long lists that have existed for many years, often with the same or very similar items, surely must contain mostly apocryphal items. “TheWelfare Letter” has been documented longer than most such lists, with examples found as long ago as World War I.
Update New Topic