'Septermeber' misspelled road sign put up in Oxford

The bungled sign in Oxford city centre has been called a "glaring mistake" and left people "disgusted"

A roadworks sign that spells September as "Septermeber" has disgusted locals.

The temporary sign in Oxford city centre is meant to instruct readers of a three-day closure in Becket Street.

A county council spokesman said it was "not immune" to "typographical errors" and compared the council to the BBC.

Zoe Blackman, who spotted the mistake, said: "A typo is one thing; adding several letters to a widely recognisable word such as September is an entirely different matter."

'Budding neologist'

In a lengthy critique of the bungled sign, she added: "As a moderately intelligent and seemingly well educated person-type I tend to notice glaring mistakes such as this upon immediate discovery.

"Perhaps the person in charge of signs was a budding neologist, or maybe they decided they wanted to use more of the enticing letters that lay before them on their keyboard. Who knows?

"It could be a salacious poke at the Oxford University educational standards within the city.

"Whatever it is, it annoys the living daylights out of me, and I hope someone's cheeks are flushing red with embarrassment at their desk."

Mo Bacon from Buckinghamshire who retweeted a photo of the sign, said: "I was just disgusted that it was put up with no-one bothering to check it first.

"Having been a teacher I'm very aware of bad grammar."

'Easy to rectify'

Stephen Linstead, chair of the English Spelling Society, said: "The word September is spelt as it is pronounced - i.e. phonetically. Unlike many English words, it doesn't contain any element of irregularity to trap the unwary. In short - no excuse!"

Oxfordshire County Council apologised to those offended by the error.

Spokesman Martin Crabtree said such spelling mistakes were "unfortunate" and said the BBC also made such errors.

He added: "The mistake is easy to rectify and the meaning of the sign in the meantime is still clear.

"There will be no cost to the county council as the wording on the sign is the result of an error made by our contractor."

Two years ago the county council came under fire after contractors wrote "schoul" on a road outside Wolvercote Primary.