A typo seems like a rather small thing to cause such a cataclysmic result. What I really mean is the typo will end someone's world, not the world for everyone.
I once had a manager who basically rewrote everything you wrote. I once threw my copy at the wall in front of him. I can still see his pinched "corrections" inserted over or under my text. Arrows and bent connecting lines when there wasn't enough space and the margins were needed. He sweated over text. And we were only auditors writing a report. If he were a newspaper editor he would still be cobbling the story about the sinking of the Titanic.
Of course the text wasn't greatly improved—if at all— by his additions, corrections rephrasing and subtraction of contractions. It was a waste of time. I used to joke that Harry was going to be done in by a typo. He was done in by something, because eventually he went on long-term disability and was never seen again.
I just got my annual compilation of blog postings that are printed in a hard cover book by Blog2Print. For me, the annual vanity costs about $60 after the "act now" discounts. No one pays retail. Price becomes dependent on the number of pages it takes to print the collection. The paper is a nice vellum, there is a table of contents, and the photos used in the postings are reproduced. And you can use photos on the front and back covers. It makes for a nice presentation.
It also makes for a nice set of volumes to stack or get on a shelf. Fill the shelf. I've now completed 10 years of writing the blog, and there have been over 1,250 postings. And they're all compiled in hard cover volumes of the same design. It is my memoirs.
After writing a posting I do spell checking and proofreading. I re-read a few times, walk away, give it some time, and then come back to the copy. The approach usually ferrets out the bad phrasing, the typos, the bad spelling and the errant punctuation. I don't like doing this, but I have no editor. After my review, the "publish" button is pressed and the posting is out there.
I can of course always re-edit the piece. Sometimes after a look-back I still find something that's not right, and because it's online, I can still make the change and save it.
But once the postings are compiled and printed, they really are "published" and you can't go back and make a change to the paper copy. I cringe when I re-read some of my work that's been compiled and I still find a typo, a bad alignment, or an awkward phrase. How the hell did I miss that? I'm going to be done in by typos and suffer Harry's fate.
An example of what suddenly became glaring was the spelling of compliant when I wanted to spell complaint. The words are much alike. I know the limitations of SpellChecker, and that's one of them. Both spellings are correct, but only one spelling is the one I want to use.
"Back at he safe house..." "after the first their is no other..." JESUS CHRIST! I let that one slip by? It can be humiliating to re-read what you thought was good copy, only to find glaring mistakes.
Not every posting has need of further corrections. Lots of the copy is clean. But it amazes me considering how much copy there is in a newspaper such as The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal that they are free of bo-boos. And I think they did away with many editor positions. Thus, the onus to get it right lies more heavily on the reporter these days, and reading your own work with the aim of finding errors is difficult, and often not successful.
One of my most glaring errors, this one at spelling, made it into testimony in Federal court. Twice. I had to prepare a computer report detailing claim filing activity for the defendant. The printout became part of the prosecution's evidence. As the creator of the report I got to name it. Nothing lofty, pretty straight forward, but since the defendant was a Ob-gyn physician I misspelled Obstectrics in the heading, a heading that is produced on every page of the large report.
At the first trail the assistant defense attorney seemed to try and poke holes in the report since it contained a misspelling. I was embarrassed, but it went nowhere since I explained the heading was a free-form narrative created by me, not by data from the files. I misspelled it, that's all.
The first trial ended in a hung jury. There was a second trial and I asked the AUSA if I could correct the spelling. They agreed and I produced the same report, but with no misspelling. Obstetrics replaced obstectrics.
The defense team was different, and being well-prepared (or not well-prepared) they again asked me about the misspelling. I said, "I thought I corrected that." The lead counsel made the assistant sit down. I stepped down.
But not all errors are bad. They can be funny. Years ago our vice president was leaving and it fell to my co-worker to call in the cake order. I can still remember her talking to the bakery people and telling them to spell out FAREWELL LOU. I think she even spelled it out for them.
Well, the cake comes and Lou looks down and says, "Who is this fellow named FARWELL?" They still managed to blow it.
On Saturday I was truly surprised by a surprise birthday party at a restaurant, Del Frisco's Grille in Huntington. An excellent place.
I will for the record tell you that one of the balloons with the number 70 on it did accurately announce my age, despite my telling the cute waitress is was a lie. I was half that age plus 10 years (45) and that I wasn't really there with my wife. I did this after she said I didn't look 70. Bless her heart.
The cake wasn't from the restaurant, but was brought in by my family. It was a standard birthday cake with the two wax numerical candles that affirmed I was 70. I joked that why does this number keep coming up?
The script icing however contained a typo. It read "HAPPY 40th BIRTHDAY."
All typos are not bad.
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