Tesco's dire spelling in dock again after store sign thanks customers for their 'patients'

By David Wilkes

 Spell check: The notice in the Tesco window atthe Hampton Hill store in South-West London

According to Tesco's slogan, 'every little helps'.

But at one of the supermarket giant's stores, the small matter of correct spelling was clearly not considered to be of much assistance to customers when staff put up a sign to inform them of early closing because of refurbishments.

After apologising for the 'inconvinience', it read: 'Thank you for your patients whiles we improve your store.'

The three schoolboy errors on the sign outside the store in Hampton Hill, London, were spotted today as Tesco, the UK's biggest supermarket, defied the credit crunch by reporting a 10 per cent rise in profits for the first half of this year.

A spokesman for the Plain English Campaign said: 'I'm astounded that such glaring mistakes could be made on a sign put up by such a big company as Tesco.

'It really does show how standards are dropping, and it gives the wrong message to the public when major employers allow such errors to slip through the net.

'They are giving a rubber stamp to laziness and bad education. Surely they must have people to check these things?'

A Tesco spokesman said: 'If it's a store-specific sign, it will have been generated in that store.'

It is the third time this year Tesco has come under fire for its use of language.

Last month it agreed to change the wording at its 'ten items or less' checkouts  to 'up to ten items' after a long-running and heated debate over whether the signs are linguistically correct. 

It followed criticism from supporters of good English who had argued that the signs should say 'ten items or fewer' rather than 'ten items or less'.

The solution was suggested by the Plain English Campaign. Tesco announced it will be using the revised wording in new stores only.

In July the Plain English Campaign criticised Tesco over repetition, for saying four times on a bag of mixed nuts that it contained a mixture.

The words 'mixed nuts' were written in red on the front of the pack. In three other places Tesco told customers they were buying Brazil nuts, almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts.

Tesco - which put 'contains milk' on milk bottles two years ago - said it was following rules about food packaging. But a Food Standards Agency spokesman was unaware of regulations on how often information should be repeated.