Constant Content

I had to laugh out loud when I found this interesting word substitution in my article-- probably the result of being asleep at the spell check switch:

In an article about toddlers at play:

"They build confidence in their own ability to do useful chores around the house, and feel good about intimidating grown-ups."


It should have read:


"They build confidence in their own ability to do useful chores around the house, and feel good about imitating grown-ups."


I am SO GLAD I took the time to read this one again before submitting it. Spell check can be downright dangerous. :-)

That is amusing! Good catch for you. I think if you were writing about teenagers, the word choice might have fit right in. WG

I once had a friend who was asked by her boss to type up a sign for the front door of the hardware business she worked for at the time. The sign was to say "We will be closed this coming Saturday for inventory purposes. Our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause you." She didn't pay attention during the spell check process and for half a day there was a sign on the front door that read:

"We will be closed this coming Saturday for inventory purposes. Our apologies for any incontinence this may cause you."

Don't know about being funny, but one of my pet peeves is all the editors of modern books (fiction or non-fiction, it doesn't matter) that just do spell check and nothing else. Actually copy editing the books must be a dying art. I guess the authors don't read their galley copies that closely, either. Sometimes you'll see 2 or 3 "misplaced" words on a page - "the" for "they", "you" for "your", that kind of thing. That gets irritating after a while. It takes you out of the story (fiction), and casts doubt on an author's expertise (non-fiction).

Thanks for posting these howlers. They lightened both my days.

I think one of the funniest typos is 'pubic' instead of 'public'. It crops up over and over again. I also came across 'martial' instead of 'marital' recently.

Hi Jak,

You are so right about public / pubic. When I was working as a journalist in a local newspaper we had a front page headline that read: Pubic Hair Cuts for Charity - I don't think anyone in the community ever let us forget it! It was supposed to be an article about the local public school raising funds for a charity by getting sponsored hair cuts.

The other memorable one was when the classifieds typist put an ad in under the wrong heading:

DEATHS AND FUNERALS
Firewood for sale.

Ooops!

Hayley

Cheers Hayley. LOL