Thou Shall (Not) Commit Typographical Errors
Article by Robin McGrath.
**Note: this is a reprint of an article by Robin McGrath that originally appeared in the Northeast Avalon Times newspaper.
Years ago, when I was sorting through family papers after the deaths of my parents, I came across a newspaper clipping that my father had apparently saved. It advertised a “Public Letcher” to be given at the university. A second clipping corrected the misprint and advised that it was actually a "Pubic Lecture” that was being promoted. I could hear my father's laugh as I read the typo and the supposed correction, and wondered if the proofreader was playing a joke on someone.
In a recent newspaper article, a young Paralympian was said to have competed in three Canada Games before the 2025 event in St. John's but had “never won either of them.” This time he took home four medals. It was a wonderful accomplishment for the young man, and he deserved the full-page and three photo coverage, but he also deserved decent English. It strikes me as ironic that a young handicapped athlete can win four medals in national competition, but that a paid reporter cannot figure out that “either” refers to two rather than the “any” the sentence needs.
When I drive to town on the CBS Highway, I pass a large advertising sign for a physiotherapy clinic that reads, “Why did the cow need a massage? Because their calf was sore.” The use of the plural when referring to humans of uncertain gender is common these days, though there are some of us who will probably never get used to it, but surely in this case there is no doubt of the sex of the cow. A cow is a she, a bull is a he, and as far as I know, there are no cattle out there of undetermined gender.
Okay, I know I'm being a bit picky here, but that's my job. I was trained as an English professor, and can't quite shake it off. My mister jokes that I'm a doctor of English, and that if you have any dangling participles or split infinities, I can cure you in no time. I wish it were so, but the truth is that I have to work just as hard at proofreading as the rest of the English-speaking world.
Growing up, I had a hard time at school because I could not spell. I was thought to be lazy or uninterested or both, neither of which was the case, which didn't stop me from failing two years of high school. When I eventually squeaked into first year university, I had the good fortune to have a professor who recognized that I had a learning disability called dysgraphia. My eldest grandson, who is far smarter than me, suffers from the same disability, but he was diagnosed in grade four and given a computer by his school. For some reason, the use of a typewriter or computer bypasses the brain-hand dysfunction.
Typographical errors are often irritating, sometimes funny, and occasionally dangerous. For example, there was a diplomatic incident between Sudan and the United States in 2005 regarding a nuclear test-code named “Sedan.” There is no saint to stop typists from making keyboard input errors, but there is a demon dedicated to their work. As far back as 1285, the demon Titivillus is said to have been checking the work of scribes to collect errors in their scriptures. He also collected idle chat during Christian church services, as well as any mispronunciations, and mumbled or skipped words of the service, to take to hell to be counted against the offenders.
I don't use a cell phone. I have never used one in my entire life, and I don't intend to start now, especially after Googling “fat-finger errors.” This happens when you mean to tap one key but hit the one next to it. Some typos are quite funny, at least to everyone except the author. A secretary reports that an email she sent out told all employees they could “get their flu shits in the conference room,” to which one recipient replied, “I think that's what we're trying to avoid.” Autocorrect isn't always helpful, as it has been known to change “terrible” to “testicle”, or “skills” to “kills” or “concentration” to “constipation.”
At a heritage committee meeting recently, I volunteered to proofread the manuscript of a book about war vets that was being prepared for publication. The authors were delighted and wanted me to begin reviewing the manuscript right away, but I had to decline, as a proofreader is the court of last resort. It's a proven fact that if you catch an obvious error, you will almost always miss the next one, which is why it is necessary to give the proofreader as clean a copy as is humanly possible.
The most famous typo in the world is probably in the edition of the King James Bible printed in London in 1631. Known as the Adulterous Bible, or the Sinners Bible, the Wicked Bible left out the word “not” in the seventh commandment so that it read “Thou shalt commit adultery.” A thousand copies were published and sold, and a full year passed before anyone noticed the error. Of those 1000 copies, only ten survived into modern times. A copy went at auction in 2015 for $47,500, and resold three years later for $56,250.
What prompted this interest in typos? Well, I write for an online magazine, the Seaboard Review of Books, and when I received a copy in my email yesterday, I was mortified to discover that I'd written that a particular book “was not without it's problems.” I'd like to blame Titivillus, but I can't. Mea maxima culpa.
About the Author
Robin McGrath was born in Newfoundland. She earned a doctorate from the University of Western Ontario, taught at the University of Alberta, and for 25 years did research in the Canadian Arctic on Inuit Literature and culture before returning home to Newfoundland and Labrador. She now lives in Harbour Main and is a full-time writer. Robin has published 26 books and over 700 articles, reviews, introductions, prefaces, teaching aids, essays, conference proceedings and chapbooks. Her most recent book is Labrador, A Reader’s Guide. (2023). She is a columnist for the Northeast Avalon Times and does freelance editing.