Typos

Typo Tuesday, Week 8

Happy Tuesday! Well, by the time most of you read this, it’ll be Wednesday or later because it’s evening here in California. I have a good excuse: I had braces applied today and I had a doctor appointment, on top of the usual work and activities.

Because of that, today’s entry will be short and simple. In fact, I came across these typos while reading a short news article during my daughter’s nap. This article is about a 500 kg woman named Eman Ahmed who was flown to India for weight loss surgery. Here’s a link to the original article.

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By Rob Howard, ago

Mistakes Are the Best Teachers

A few days ago, I joined the year 2010 (only a few years late!) and made an Instagram account. It’s called, unsurprisingly, leethelinguist.

I made my first post, and what did I notice a few minutes later? A typo! I blame it on my iPhone’s autocorrect! I’d mentioned how my day job was having a technical problem on their end, so I had more time to write posts. Of course, it autocorrected to “there end,” which is something I would instantly notice anywhere! And I did notice it right away but only after I had nervously posted the photo. Before any of my *zillions* of followers could see it and criticize me, I quickly commented on the photo that autocorrect had gotten me!

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By Rob Howard, ago

Typo Tuesday, Week 5

Happy Tuesday evening! It’s time for another edition of Typo Tuesday. For this week’s entry, I’d like to present some screenshots from companies that offer proofreading and editing services. Yes, that’s correct.

I have well over a decade of experience copyediting and proofreading for two companies as well as even more experience helping out friends and family, but I haven’t done much freelance work for individuals I don’t know already. The freelance work I have done was paid hourly, but it seems that a lot of clients prefer to pay by the word or by the page. I wanted to do some research on what other freelance proofreaders charge when they charge by the unit rather than by the hour.

What I found was… interesting. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again that even proofreaders need proofreaders, and I’m sure there will eventually be errors on Lee the Linguist (if there aren’t already). However, I was rather shocked by how often I found errors on websites selling proofreading services, and even more surprisingly, on the pages where they stress the importance of having your work proofread!

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By Rob Howard, ago

Malapropism Monday, Week 4 — Compliment vs. Complement

It’s Monday again! You know what that means, right? I still have some malapropisms left on my list, so I’ll continue with this series a while longer.

Today I wanted to focus on the use and misuse of “compliment” and “complement.” This is a pair of words that people mix up all the time, in my experience. In fact, I mentioned it in my recent post on TokyoTreat snack subscription boxes. Here’s a screenshot from their (overall enjoyable and well-done) magazine that comes in the box:

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By Rob Howard, ago

Typo Tuesday, Week 4

My MS Word document full of typos is so long, I’m going to start adding at least two screenshots per entry for Typo Tuesday. At some point I may run low and change that, but I doubt it will happen soon because I come across typos all the time.

First up for today, we have another entry from the Wordfast CAT (computer-assisted translation) software I checked out before a job interview.

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By Rob Howard, ago