Rutte sends spelling mistake into space
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who isn’t known for his command of English, has made sure everyone in the galaxy knows his written English isn’t out of this world either.
While visiting California, Rutte was invited by a satellite manufacturer to send a message into space with his signature on it. He wrote down “Peace and prosparity”, instead of ‘prosperity’. In his defense, in Dutch the ‘e’ and ‘a’ of English sounds the same to many Dutch people. But he’s the PM and someone in his entourage (does he have one?) could have said something.
Of course, this small mistake is a vast improvement on his predecessor Jan Peter Balkenende who apparently addressed George Bush as ‘your presidency’. Then again Bush apparently also thought JP was from Belgium because a lot of European countries look the same.
(Link: www.deondernemer.nl, Photo by Petra de Boevere, some rights reserved)
Then Bush said he loved Balkenende in all them Harry Potter movies!
I’m a native “American English” speaker, and I make mistakes like this everyday. Nothing to feel ashamed about there. Spelling “potatoe” like one of our past politicians did (Dan Quayle) is inexcusable.