crash possums

(n.) -- words that are spelled incorrrectly, for all the world to see, on TV broadcasts at CNN and other networks

"I've seen some real bloopers and howlers on CNN recently, where the headline writer spelled "competing" as "competiting" and things like that. Happens almost every day on my TV screen, all the networks do it. Don't they have copyeditors? I call them 'crash possums' because they remind me of dead possums on rural roads and highways."

-- Overheard outside a coffee shop in Harvard Square in Cambridge on January 8, 2010