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Typos

Oct 17

Why do we make typos?

By Proofreading, Short and sweet, Typos

We rely on our computer’s spell-checker. We write in a hurry. We don’t consult a dictionary. We focus on meaning rather than form. We can’t be bothered to check our spelling. These are some of the possible answers to the question “Why do we make typos?”

Another culprit is the human brain: We’re not motivated enough to not make typos, because we read words, not letters. If there are mistakes in a text, such as a few missing letters, our brain fills in the gaps. In essence, to our brain, misspellings don’t count—we’re still able to read a text despite it having misprints. Read More

Dec 08

The funniest typos of 2017 – Part 2

By Funny stories, Typos, Vocabulary

A few years back, I wrote an article for a project management website. In the final draft I submitted for publication, I left an error: Scum master instead of Scrum master. How could I have missed such an embarrassing typo? Now I know: When we read our own work, we don’t focus on the words themselves but on the message we’re trying to communicate, so our typos tend to hang on until they meet an objective eye.

My job as a freelance proofreader is to seek and destroy typos in other people’s work, but I have a nerdy hobby: I collect the funniest ones and then write blurbs inspired by them.

I presented the first half of the funniest typos of 2017 in another blog post. Here’s the second half:

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Jul 14

The funniest typos of 2017 – Part 1

By Funny stories, Typos, Vocabulary

As a freelance proofreader, I get the chance to see all kinds of typos—many dull, a few irreverent, and some hilarious—before they reach the reader. Although it’s fun to correct misspellings, some are too creative to be buried under red markups forever.

To make you smile, here is the first half of the lineup of the most creative typos I came across in 2017:

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