I stumbled upon the word ‘unafforable’ when reading an article in The Guardian about how the trend for ‘proteinmaxxing’ could lead to higher prices for infant formula.
Dr Vicky Sibson was misquoted as saying there is “mounting evidence that many families using formula to feed their babies find it unafforable, and the coping strategies they use – like watering down feeds – may be harmful.” The online version of this article has been corrected.
When I come across a strange word, my first reaction is to look it up. If a dictionary shows it’s not a word, I do a search anyway to see how often it appears. Surprisingly, “unafforable” appears in a number of online articles by both professional bodies such as Professional Adviser to esteemed publications like the Washington Post and The Economist.
Digging a little deeper, I noticed that these errors were contained in the title of the articles, and consequently in their (presumably) auto-generated URLs. Is this the problem? Having failed to spot the spelling mistake in the title, there is a domino effect of hyperlinks, shared links, SEO keyword descriptions and so on becoming embedded.
It’s not unfixable with a bit of effort, but everyone has moved on, leaving a slug trail of weird spellings across the internet. Enjoy!
