For $6.95, the diner near my apartment offers a delicious "hamuber" deluxe. For those of you unfamiliar with the "hamuber," it's exactly like a hamburger, only without the benefit of proper spelling.

Apparently, this "restaurant"-a place that purports to specialize in "breakfast anytime" but serves packages of pseudo-syrup rather than bottles of the 100% maple stuff-has so much faith in its food that attention to detail no longer matters. That seems odd for an establishment where the deluxe part of "hamuber deluxe" means it comes with two wilted pieces of lettuce, a sad slice of tomato and some soggy fries.

At some diners, though not this one, the deluxe version also includes dessert. That usually gives you a choice between chocolate pudding with a skin on top that would make a football jealous or a selection from the rotating container of pies and cakes. The pastry case always rotates in places like this, perhaps so you won't notice that they're still selling the same batch baked when the store opened in 1947.

Like most restaurants that fail to copy-edit their menus, this particular diner suffers from other quality lapses. Luckily, this place still offers serviceable meals and decent omelettes, which puts it a clear step above the deli near my office.

This establishment, one of those places that sells day-old newspapers and cans of Coke touting promotions long since past, has a menu which advertises "omuelettes." Perhaps that's better than the Long Island diner that offer a lunch special of "quish," by which I assume they mean quiche. Luckily, real men don't eat quish, so I never had to find out.

These errors have become so rampant at diners, delis and other inexpensive restaurants that very few of these eateries have printed menus without mistakes-not to mention the horror show of their special boards. Ads touting "turkey beast," "chicken consume" and other ghastly gaffes have practically become the norm.

Unfortunately, this shoddy effort has spread to fine dining establishments as well. One hoity-toity, $75-per-person restaurant my fiancé and I ate at recently offered a fabulous "sworkfish" and a delectable "fried calamrie." Now for those prices, I not only expect proper spelling, but I want a menu with eye-pleasing fonts, a jaunty cover design and a waiter who gives out stock tips.

In addition to the occasional blunder on the food side of the menu, fancy places invariably offer "expresso" as an option on the dessert menu. Perhaps this is a new caffeine-heavy beverage that comes very fast-your waiter runs by with the little cup and flings the hot liquid down your throat. Barring that, I'm guessing that if it looks like espresso, tastes like espresso and costs $4.95 like espresso, then spelling aside, that's what it is.

Fortunately, though mistakes on a menu should raise a warning flag, spelling and decent food have no direct relationship. If we judged good chefs based on their command of the language, Emeril "Bam Bam" Lagasse would be hawking clam chowder on a streetcorner.