The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time, a book about our 2008 adventures, will be in bookstores in August 2010. Pre-order today at Borders, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or Random House, or reserve at your favorite independent bookstore (start here). For further information as it becomes available, sign up here.
The Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL)
I've Got A Theory
Written by Benjamin Herson
Saturday, 13 March 2010 01:15
Consider the THEORY front in the creationism vs. evolution debate. Creationists want their mythology taught alongside a scientific theory. They justify this demand by stating that they have a different theory about how the universe started, using theory as a synonym for idea, guess, or speculation. Indeed, that definition can be found in the dictionary, too. It's just not the way that scientists are using it. In scientific terminology, a theory is a set of assumptions that incorporate already observed data into a working model that can be used to predict future outcomes. This predictive validity is what gives a scientific theory its punch. Scientists would say (and have said) that creationism isn't a theory, it's just an idea, or a thought. Creationists, meanwhile, work to chip away the distinction in the public view by saying things that specifically bring to mind their definition of theory. Of evolution they say, "It's just a theory." The just there functioning to imply that very little goes into forming a theory, denigrating the work of over a hundred years of research, investigation, and refinement of said theory.
In the battle over gradual language change, it's usually impossible to stop the acceptance of new words, new uses, or new meanings that (ahem) evolve over time. This is one case where I do believe someone needs to step in and do something, though. If the public is casually accepting the speculation definition for theory as the only definition, scientists will need to either invent themselves a new word altogether, or else specify their usage, even if doing so makes them technically redundant. This, of course, carries other problems. I'd hate to hear everyone trying to say the mouthful of "the predictive-validity-certified-theory of evolution" (or something like that) every time.
On Sunday evening, as I was walking home from Davis Square with Jane, I noticed with dismay that the pizza box I was carrying had a typo.
It was too late to try going back to the pizza place to alert them of the error. The steaming pie within the erroneous box was warm in my hands, and I desired to eat it posthaste. Jane made a suggestion for how we could at least correct our box once we got home, and so once back in the kitchen, I followed her advice and dipped a digit into the grease pooling atop the pizza.
Over the weekend, as I had the occasion to visit the Sixth Annual John Dante Ice Cream Social in Somerville, I was invited to give a keynote speech on TEAL. The host had only barely hinted at the possibility of this oratory during the previous weekend, and I was still getting over being sick for a few days, but I managed to improvise a few words. Here's the video of that speech, filmed masterfully by Jane:
This is a time for looking back, and looking ahead. Two years ago, on March 5, 2008, one Jeff Deck got into his car and drove southward, leaving behind his home for over two months, on a mission to forever change the world. Yes, we've reached the two-year anniversary of the Typo Hunt Across America. Soon, we'll begin setting dates for our second hunt (folded into a book tour). TEAL's come a long way. It's fun to think back to Jeff's minor expectations. He figured he'd just see the country, correcting typos as he went, and that his immediate friends would be amused by his blog postings. That maybe a few interested folks would find it, too. I remember how startled we were by phone calls from people who wanted to put us on TV. I was interviewed for an article in my hometown paper as I was only just really coming around to the importance of the mission--I'd only come along for the road trip! Oh, and then there was the thing with the Grand Canyon folks, and our criminal records were written, complete with typos in the court documents. So TEAL had to go into hiding, and yet even that served as a--perhaps necessary--incubation period. And now...we've written a book, which comes out in 152 days. Other things are in the works, too. TEAL is going to grow still more in the coming months. Be ready, just in case we need some help--we may soon be issuing a call to action or two (or more). We've only just begun...
On Saturday, I reached a milestone that many others in the history of the world, whether from famine, disaster, overdose, war, or creeping pestilence, have not been able to reach. If I were to drive off a cliff today, my death would still be accounted "tragic" by the newspapers, but perhaps not nearly as tragic as that of someone twenty-nine or younger. Yes, folks, your humble narrator has now put three decades behind him.
Maybe I’ve got a few years left in me, though. In fact, we heard from a good number of people during our typo hunt who expressed their surprise that we were twentysomethings who actually cared about spelling and grammar. They’d previously thought that guardianship of the language would come to a close with their own generation. I believe there are misconceptions all around about which demographic cares about what. People predicted that we would find more typos in the South than the North, or in rural areas as opposed to urban enclaves, but our typo hunt revealed that truly everyone can and does make mistakes. Now I must reveal the truth about the age demographics of typo hunters: young and old citizens alike care about a better future for spelling. Right now, 56% of the people on the TEAL Fan Page on Facebook are 34 or younger. 17% are 24 or younger. In fact, the striking statistical gap is gender, not age: about two-thirds of TEAL fans on Facebook are women. But that may simply be due to the surpassing handsomeness of Benjamin and myself.
Ever since TEAL began, I’ve talked with many people in college or high school who appreciate our mission and would like to carry it forward themselves. Right now, students across North America are weeding typos out of school newspapers and yearbooks. They’re editing their homework and term papers on PCs and Macs, with a technical facility that I just barely caught the beginning of back in the nineties when I was in high school. I think that from my vantage point of thirty, looking at both my junior and senior counterparts, I see ample reason to believe that typo eradication is a cause for all ages.
