Ulyanovsk residents analyzed signs, advertisements and other elements of urban space for errors. They presented the results at the third regional competition of creative works "Bug Hunt - 2020". Its results were summed up on September 8, International Literacy Day, as Yulia Uzryutova talks about in a material for the Federal Agency for Social Information.

The purpose of the competition is to draw the attention of the inhabitants of the region, advertisers, journalists and officials to cases of neglect of the language and to influence the change in the situation. It is held by the Center for Educational and Cultural Projects "Klever" and the Ulyanovsk Regional Library for Children and Youth. S.T. Aksakov.

This year the usual format of the competition had to be changed.

“We came up with a lot of different innovations: new nominations, participation formats, but all this was canceled due to the coronavirus. I had to improvise on the go: we transferred everything to an online format and left only one nomination - videos, ”said Mikhail Kamaleev, organizer of the competition, head of Klever, to ASI.

The results were summed up on September 8, International Literacy Day. Four entries made it to the final of the competition.

Elena Tiunova said that from early childhood she noticed errors in advertising banners and newspapers. She presented a selection of mistakes seen on the streets of the city (on the "children's playground", "bankruptcy", "exclusive", "special", "do not self-medicate", "professional", "request to wipe your feet on a special rug soaked in disinfectant") . In her opinion, such mistakes can ruin the reputation.

Kristina Matrenina collected blunders of presenters and correspondents during live broadcasts.

Residents of other cities also became participants in the competition. So, the work of Anastasia Invers from Bratsk "Sentence of a morphemic trifle" reached the final. The video plays on a very popular error in today's "Please wear a mask" ads and explains the correct use of the words "wear/wear". It is in ads related to the need to wear a mask that errors are most often encountered.

School No. 72 became the winner of the competition with the work “Mistake came out”. Schoolchildren presented a video in news format: correspondents made mini-reports about the mistakes they noticed. For example, “birthday” in a supermarket ad, separate spelling of the word “despite” in an election booklet, “frozen fish”. Interestingly, the last ad also said "dried fish". The authors of the ad corrected this mistake, but the word “frozen” is still hanging.

The organizers of the "hunt" believe that literacy in the surrounding area is very important, and the contest allows you to think about this, including the authors of signs and advertisements in the city.

“Schoolchildren see mistakes on signs, in shop windows, on flyers and begin to think that everything is as it should be, they transfer it to everyday life and to their notebooks. There is a kind of legitimization of illiteracy. Over the four years of the "hunt" existence, we have corrected more than 200 errors only on the streets of the city, not to mention thousands of cases in social networks. And I know that many entrepreneurs, advertisers consult the dictionary, just to avoid getting into our field of vision,” Mikhail Kamaleev is sure.