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NPR meant to hail 'the year of the woman' in Mexico and promptly fell on an ass

Words matter, absolutely. But punctuation matters, too.

Adam Rosenberg

on July 1, 2018

NPR meant to hail 'the year of the woman' in Mexico and promptly fell on an ass

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Ramon Espinosa/AP/REX/Shutterstock (9726147a) Jose Antonio Meade, Ricardo Anaya, Alejandra Barrales. Presidential candidate Ricardo Anaya, of the left-right coalition Forward for Mexico, waves a Mexican flag next to mayoral candidate for Mexico City Alejandra Barrales at a campaign rally in Mexico City, . Mexico's four presidential candidates are holding their last weekend of campaigning before the country's July 1 elections Elections, Mexico City, Mexico - 24 Jun 2018 Credit: Ramon Espinosa/AP/REX/Shutterstock

It may be a terrible year for the United States, but in Mexico, 2018 is "el año de la mujer" -- the year of the woman.

A recent report from National Public Radio highlighted the abundance of women running for elected office in the North American country. Everything would've been great, too, if not for an extremely unfortunate language error when NPR tweeted the story.

"There are more than 3,000 women running for elective office in Mexico," the original tweet read. "Some Mexicans are calling 2018 'el ano de la mujer,' which translates to 'the year of the woman.'"

Do you see the mistake? It says "ano" rather than "año." The latter word, with the tilde situated above the "n," translates to year. But ano? No tilde? Yeah, that's Spanish for anus.

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The anus of the woman. Good grief.

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Accidents happen, and NPR corrected the error, as you can see. But not before a waiting Twitter gleefully kicked around the original tweet. In good fun, of course. Great to know that's still possible in 2018.

(And hey, here's that original story. The año/ano thing is both unfortunate and funny, but NPR's report is still a good, informative read.)

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It wasn't all fun and games, however. Some used the occasion of NPR's error to point out the importance of representation in the newsroom. We might not know how this particular error came to happen, but you can bet a fluent Spanish-speaker would have caught that mistake on a fact-check!

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UPDATED July 1, 2018 9:13 p.m. ET An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Mexico is in Central America, when it is actually part of North America.

Adam Rosenberg

Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.