A misspelled government billboard in Medellín’s El Poblado neighborhood was the subject of both humor and dismay this week.
The advertisement, which read “Trabajamos para vos. $3,384 mil millones de pesos invertidos. Mobilidad sostenible. Cicloruta Las Vegas”, had three spelling mistakes in total. The first, the word “mobilidad”, was written with a “b” instead of “v”. The second mistake was the presence of the word “mil” after a number, which should not be present in Spanish. And the third mistake was the misspelling of the word “cicloruta”, which should have read, “ciclorruta” with a double “r”.
Twitter exploded over the weekend, with some users making jokes, but most dismayed at the embarrassing error. The mistakes were blamed on Medellín’s Mayor’s Office. Juan Diego Restrepo, a journalist and researcher, wrote on social media: “The mediocrity of Medellín’s Mayor’s Office is evident even in his spelling”.
https://twitter.com/JDRestrepoE/status/902695998564294656
A few hours later, the Mayor’s Office administration confirmed that the billboard was taken down apologized for the mistake.
“We apologize for what happened, it was an editorial mistake. The billboard has already been taken down and is being corrected”, the statement read.
However, yesterday another billboard with similar mistakes was found and pictures of it were shared on social media.
Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez has been under fire for a confluence of problems in Colombia’s second largest city. Crime has soared since he has taken office, he has been plagued by corruption scandals, and the city’s Altavista neighborhood has been the site of an ongoing gang war.
