Ottawa Public Space Campaign Briefly Derailed By Embarrassing Typo

A public space improvement campaign in downtown Ottawa was briefly derailed after an unfortunate typo on French-language posters changed the meaning of the message in a way that caught the wrong kind of attention.

The bright purple posters were meant to promote a program creating new pedestrian-friendly gathering areas in Centretown. In French, the signs were supposed to read “placettes publiques,” meaning small public squares or public spaces.

But the posters were printed without the letter L in “publiques,” turning the word into “pubiques,” which in French means pubic.

French and English versions of the signs appeared over the weekend at key intersections along Bank Street. By Sunday morning, the French-language posters had been removed.

The posters were promoting a joint effort by the City of Ottawa and the Centretown Business Improvement Area to pedestrianize sections of MacLaren, Frank and Waverley streets from June to October. The English version of the initiative is called “Uncommon Spaces.”

The corrected signs are expected to replace the removed posters, restoring the campaign’s intended focus: public spaces, not pubic ones.

This story is covered in this week’s Keep Canada Weird news roundup.