I can’t help it. I see them everywhere.
I suppose it comes with the territory of being a professional editor; yet, I don’t think one needs to be a professional to see (and be bothered by) the typos that appear everywhere in everyday life since fellow word lovers often make me aware and send me photos. Following are a few recent ones.
You have to have a sense of humor.
At the local Dollar Store, some enterprising employee put these extras out on sale, marking them thusly:
Seems like if you are going to misspell a word, you wouldn’t do it the hardest way possible. Overstalk?
Really? Now this is “overstalk”:
Sometimes I wish I could carry a black marker and make fixes wherever I see them. That is, in fact, what Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson did–literally traveling (travelling?) around the United States to correct typos–and wrote the book The Great Typo Hunt–Two Friends Changing the World One Correction at a Time (Crown, 2010). They fixed some, weren’t allowed to fix others, and even got taken to court for defacing property.
Someone’s gotta do it.
My sister found this on highway 30 somewhere in Ohio. I do not understand the whole “let’s make a plural with an apostrophe” thing.
Here’s a brochure for a recreational area near where my extended family lives. There are so many things wrong on just this panel of the brochure. Between spelling and font and consistency issues, my eyes are twitching. And I’m so glad to know that Kinzua (which is misspelled) Dam is so da** near Warren, Pennsylvania. And it’s “Niagara” …
Even our clothing isn’t exempt. I saw these at a local Walmart. After I posted this on Facebook, the T-shirts disappeared by the next day.
Last evening as I trolled Amazon for Christmas ideas, I was looking for stationery — the pretty kind, you know, with pieces of paper and matching envelopes. However, apparently they don’t just sell the kind to write on but also some special kind that stays in place as I use it:
Menus are often hilarious — especially at small mom-and-pop diners. There are at least 8 errors in this menu from the Muncie Gyros and Pancakes House (which in itself is pretty funny) . . . I really want the “frries” and a second “tirp to the sald bar.”
Have you found some good typos in your travels? Send them along and I’ll do a part 2 from my alert readers.
After all, we must protect the world from typos!
Linda Taylor: Teacher, Editor, Publishing Professional 