Phonetic and orthographic confusion of Chinese characters

A protester holds a placard that reads "Do not forget 831 terror attack, truth needs to be seen on CCTV" during a demonstration at a Hong Kong mall on Aug. 30 on the eve of the first anniversary of the Prince Edward MTR station incident when police stormed the station to make arrests during massive anti-government protests. (Photo: AFP)

(Source)

The sign says "Do not forget" or "Never forget", but it’s written 母忘 ("mother forget") instead of 毋忘 ("don't forget").  The shapes of the two characters are so similar that it is easy to mix them up.  But the problem is compounded by the fact that they are pronounced similarly in Cantonese, which misled the writer in addition to visual similarity of the characters.  In Cantonese mou4 毋 and mou5 母 sound very close.

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