Whatever happened to proofreading?
By Penelope Whitson,
Word nerds are not usually considered the world’s funniest people – we’re usually viewed with deep suspicion, as though at any moment we’re going to whip out a three-ton dictionary and smack you over the head for even thinking a spelling mistake. We can hear you frantically thinking ‘I before e’. We have red pens hidden in our handbags for marking up your mistakes. You know we are judging you and probably getting off on it. We all want to be Stephen Fry.
And it’s all true but occasionally we also like to break out a full belly guffaw. Usually at someone else’s expense. And what makes our glasses fall off, especially my imaginary ones, is accidental hysterical use of the English language. No doubt this is partially due to our need to feel superior. But let’s be honest – English is a bitch of a language. We screw it up every day. And then we put it in print and let others read it.
My lunch menu recently read ‘Cheery tomatoes’. I like the idea of happy little tomatoes, waiting patiently in line for the chop. At a previous job, a workmate tried to print a cover for a book called Terroism. Observed on the front page of a national New Zealand paper – vault instead of volt. A road sign reading ‘State highway improvments in progress’. And every hour of every day, an apostrophe is abused.
Underlining all of this, which might only be amusing to a few, is, of course, the importance of having an editor. Or a proofreader. Or your mum. Spellcheck? Get someone to read your thing before it goes to the printer so you don’t look like a total fool. Try not to let them do it in a hurry. If you’re putting something out there for people to read, even if it is ‘just’ a menu – it represents your brand. If you’re lax about presentation, then what other aspects of your business do you not care about?
While I’m up here on my high horse I’m afraid I can’t hear the abuse you’re hurling at me for being a totally up myself grandiloquent word nerd wanker, but allow me to admit my own shortcomings.
Possibly because I spend my life looking for spelling mistakes, I have been known to misread things. Case in point – one tired night I thought I saw a book called the Biology of Pants. Bingo thought my inner pants pervert. And then I realised it was, of course, the Biology of Plants. This is obviously a family thing because my equally well mis-read brother recently found an ad he thought said: 'Abortionist wanted' … presumably arborists need not apply.
Comments
Jody Connor
Excellently written, insightful, and hilarious! I like her.
Vicki
Don't forget about the perennial chilly chicken and I have a photo from a fruit and veg shop that was selling beens.
Jo
How about the vege shops with 'kumura'
Philip Bridgen
For some years I have felt that US-published books, including user manuals, were pretty error-free, and must thus be well proofread - in contrast to NZ books (sadly) and NZ media including TV. However, over the last year I have noticed that the US standard has deteriorated, and that the same sort of egregious errors have begun to appear. Sad, unfortunate and unnecessary, if you believe that correct word choice, spelling, punctuation and grammar are all essential elements of meaningful communication.
Jo
Ah, someone after my own heart! I too am the person that giggles at restaurant menus and signs.
A few favourites off the top of my head…
* Supermarkets that have 'Lion chops' instead of 'Loin chops'
* A menu of a Chinese restaurant that spelt 'aubergine' as 'aborigine'….
* A real estate sign with 'If Your Not Here, Your Missing Out'
Vicki
I looked after a database with no spellchecker for about five years and started collecting a mixtionary (mixed up dictionary) of mis-spelled words to which I added meanings for amusement. For example - scoffalding - platform from which you hurl abuse. I should try to find it again…
Travis Cottreau
Superb article. I agree that proofreading is a vital skill for word wankers, but other people could really use a heavy dose as well.
My favourite EVER miss was on the spine of one of a series of management books that read “Qualaty Management”. I kept wondering how many levels of qualaty checks that must have been through.
Vincent Heeringa
Despite being the most celebrated business journalist in all of my driveway, my spelling is shocking, as is my proofing. Here are three of the best.
Recently sighted in a caption in Idealog: 'Cockwise from the left'. My sons thought that was terribly funny. Sigh.
After a run-in with the paparazzi a few years back, equestrian Mark Todd tried a bit of PR, which I reported about in a business magazine. 'Mark Todd', I wrote, 'has employed some professionals to help lift his pubic profile'.
That one was caught by the proofer, but this one wasn't. “Mr Myers has asked for better media. Well, he's found it here, a magazine full of intalligent journalism”.
Shiz.
Tonya Callebaut
This is very well written. I do have to say though, I'm no word nerd and my English is not fantastic but it infuriates me when I see simple spell errors in magazines and in the newspaper. A LOT of them are because spell check has been used instead of re-reading it, this would overlook vault instead of volt and the many places you get a double and and or an of of. This is simply not re-reading your work. I do think however too that school kids are being taught to say it and 'spell it' how it sounds rather than teaching them the actual phonetics like we were taught back in my day. Where have all the proof readers gone? It's tardy………
Paul Brislen
I have to say the Herald (from memory) had the best many years ago with an entire feature on Ruth Richardson's speaking voice in which the words “rounded vowels” had been replaced with “rounded bowels” over and over again.
Miranda Gregg
Lovely piece, Penelope. I look forward to reading more of your stuff. Yes, as a word wally myself I do get my jollys from seeing a typo or two. But I just read a novel that had typos all through it and I thought that was quite sad. Imagine finally getting your life's work published and it's riddled with mistakes! Like Penelope, I'm finding lately that I'm seeing letters that aren't really there. (My bran auto-corects, but my fngers dn't. Eek!) Speaking of fingers, I'm not a touch typist either so my sausage fingers sometimes get the better of me. Seems that even us word wallys are human :-)
honki
ok, how many of you commenting here read over your comment 3 times before pressing SUBMIT ?
Hazel Phillips
Wallys or wallies?
Jollys or jollies?
I can feel an existential crisis coming on…
Lyndsey
It's not just spelling. We had a wee chuckle in the office at this from yesterday's NZHerald: “Tindall married the 30-year-old Queen's granddaughter less than two months ago in Edinburgh.”
Hazel Phillips
Oh dear. It's a bit like seeing Prince Harry described as the youngest of the two brothers.
Stuart Rattenbury
Eye have a spelling chequer,
It came with my pea sea.
It plainly marques for my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid,
It nose bee fore two long,
And eye can put the error rite-
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no,
Its letter perfect all the weigh.
My chequer tolled me sew.
Matt
My flatmates and I are employing a “three strikes” policy this election: political parties invading our personal space (viz. our mailbox) with documents containing poor grammar and/or spelling three times or more will be eliminated. The Conservative Party was eliminated yesterday with three errors in one pamphlet. So much for traditional values.
Josie McNaught
In telly land it was generally accepted that the job of writing the headline captions to accompany the news often went to someone's girl/boy friend who 'wanted to get into television'. This is because there were always so many mistakes and the qualifications of these guys pretty much stopped at School C. But they were nice to look at of course. Have things moved on? Not if “Rolling Garros” which appeared on TV3 during the French Tennis Open, is anything to go by. And then there's that old chestnut 'volcanologist' everytime Ruapehu puffs out a bit of smoke. Real Estate? Just how many properties can be so 'sort' after???
Dom
The best I found was in the headline of the North Shore Times.
“Chaning lives with literacy”
Jason
Seen on a real estate group's window - “On those hot summer days you can take a slash in the pool.”
tod
spelling nerds of the world unite.
seriously, can't anyone use a simple online proofreading tool:
http://www.gingersoftware.com/proofreading
Anonymous comments on this post are disabled. Please sign up to post a new comment.