[Warning, this article contains content some may find offensive, and others will find just plain immature and stupid.]
The Securities and Exchange Commission has had a full-text search function on its Web site allowing visitors to find out if, say, a public company has filed a document with “e-mail marketing” in its text.
However, the function also reveals some funny typographical errors—that is, if you like potty humor.
It occurred to us that since SEC.gov is a repository of documents from public companies, the word “public” would be used a lot. As a result, we decided to search SEC.gov for one of the most common typos in publishing, that’s “public” without the ‘l.’
Sure enough, a search on the word “pubic” on SEC.gov returned approximately 800 results.
There was one from IncrediMail explaining that its prospectus doesn’t constitute a pubic offer in Switzerland.
Another from Encore Credit Receivables explained there is currently no pubic trading market for its notes.
And then there was one from Family Room Entertainment explaining the company follows the American Institute of Certified Pubic Accountants’ Statement of Position. We like that one a lot.
[Caution, profanity ahead.]
Our favorite SEC typo, however, was a misspelling of the word “shift.” It came courtesy of Palm Inc. in a document in which the handheld maker explained: “Partially offsetting this decrease was an increase in warranty expenses of 1.6 percentage points due to a shit in our product mix towards smartphones.”
Ahh, yes. The old shit in the product mix. That’ll increase your warranty expenses every time.