Typo Ventillation

A few days ago I posted my first ever blog and, to my great shame, I discovered that, horror of horrors, I had published this prize piece of pontification with, er hem, some typos.

A 'typo', to the uninitiated is what we in the writing business know as a 'typographical error' and is usually the result of fingers flying too quickly over a sometimes unreliable keyboard or inattentiveness, a common sin of those at a certain time of life.

Now where was I? Oh yes...

Now this may not be considered a completely heinous crime to most, but for someone whose profession is about the correct presentation of words, even the most minor typo can be cause for the most brutal self-flagellation.

But why are typos so potentially mortifying, scary even, you may ask? What's the big deal anyway? In these days of PMSL and LMAO and not to mention WTF, who really gives a rats about that misplaced vowel or that hotchpotch of consonants that gives away, well, a bad-finger day (we all have those).

The fact is that typographical errors remain an occupational hazard for those in the publishing industry with very good reason. They can lead to embarrassment. They can actually lead some people to want to burn effigies of you.

One of the best stories I have is some work experience I did back in the days when newspapers still worked with cold-type, when journalists worked on typewriters and there was no such thing as a mobile phone. I know I'm showing my age but seriously, back then, a typo had to make quite a long journey from typewriter, to bromide to typeset. So frankly, this typo was unforgivable because it wasn't noticed until it was all horribly too late.

The story I'd meticulously crafted was really gripping stuff, being a student on work experience. It was a story about how to care for your canary, because believe it or not, the paper's demographic suggested a large proportion of canary-lovers amongst its readership (go figure).

In the second sentence of this Pulitzer-worthy piece, began a sentence that was supposed to read: "Countless canaries suffer from beak rot" or words to that effect. Unfortunately, in the translation the letter 'o' dropped out of the word 'countless.'

Needless to say, my editor was horrified at the number of phone calls we received from little old ladies wanting to know what 'that C word' meant. Humiliated? What do you think!

Much later in my career, I was lucky enough to have a job editing a full-colour magazine for a large financial services firm. The magazine had a readership that would leave some regional newspapers gasping and, may I boast, it was an award-winning publication in which a mention of your name brought untold kudos to employees. (Really!)

Now as journalists know, it is absolutely vital in the mention of people's names that the spelling (in the written form) and/or the pronunciation (in the spoken form) is correct. It's a mark of professionalism and it is something most writers work hard to achieve.

But it can be somewhat difficult in this multicultural world we live in. For herewith, I confess to my second instructional typographical boo-boo (gasp! horror!) I misspelled a person's name. In my defence, this was the first, last and only such example of nomenclature I have ever encountered in my life in which said name, in fact had zero vowels. So of course, I put the 'v' next to the 'w' when in fact it should have been the 'y',

The fall-out from this unthinkable faux pas was completely out of proportion to the nature of the crime, in my view. You would think I had murdered someone. My telephone rang hot with all kinds of people baying for my blood. It was as if I did not deserve the title of Editor for this foul misdeed. My name was 'mdu'. Mud, even.

These two experiences amongst others, have taught me the importance of typos. To all you eagle-eyed editors out there, I apologise for my oversights in this or any of my forthcoming posts. I am happily willing to be corrected.

If you're a writer, I'd love to hear some of your stories about your own typo-ventillating experiences.