Comments on: What a Typo Is Not, Part I

By: jazzie99a

jazzie99a — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:51:19 +0000

Let’s talk about pet peeves.

seperate instead of separate

would of instead of would’ve

definate instead of definite

I see them all the time. Even Stephen King has used the “would/could/should of” in at least one of his books!

By: A tyranny of style « Mighty Red Pen

A tyranny of style « Mighty Red Pen — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:38:18 +0000

[…] Read the rest of “What Is Not a Typo.” […]

By: Woodbee

Woodbee — Sat, 24 May 2008 14:56:12 +0000

What typos are is a matter of not taking time, either to check and revise what you’ve written or to learn what’s right in the first place. So the people on your trip who asked, “Does it really matter?” consider their time so valuable that they are willing to settle for less than perfection if their audience gets at least the gist of their meaning. (But I’m sure they expect people like basketball players and concert musicians to achieve perfection and think that the time they have to put in is well spent.)

It used to be that you could motivate people by suggesting that bad text makes them look stupid. Now, since most people don’t seem to take the time to learn what’s right, the supposedly stupid feel that they’re in good company.

At the end of your comma section, you yourself wrote, “Does it really matter?” Punctuation is different in that there are different styles. In edited, published work, I see a whole lot more commas in compound predicates in fiction than in nonfiction. But within a style, yes, I think it matters just as much as spelling.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 23 May 2008 04:39:56 +0000

Melissa, we’re trying to find some middle ground between the two camps.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:24:00 +0000

I like this post. When I followed a link to the article in the Chicago Tribune, I thought it was very entertaining; however, I was a bit wary of your motives. Correcting grammar for better meaning is one thing. Correcting to impose your prescriptivist opinions is just pointless and annoying. I am happy to learn that you are descriptivists, and repair only those things that are clearly incorrect and could be confusing.

By: Becky

Becky — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:23:10 +0000

Regarding “cold gray night”: I was taught that you don’t need a comma between two adjectives if you could put the word “and” in its place. You could say “cold and gray night,” so I think the comma is unnecessary.

By: mighty red pen

mighty red pen — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:36:45 +0000

Thanks for pointing out that AP Style (or CMS, for that matter) does not rule the universe. It may in one’s workplace, but in matters of everyday language, it’s important to consider that there are many different approaches (which can, in and of itself, be interesting to explore). My own approach on the matter of “to serial comma or not serial comma” has often depended on where I’m working as an editor at the time!

By: smussyolay

smussyolay — Thu, 22 May 2008 05:31:34 +0000

oh. my. lord. i read the article in the trib today and i want to meet you. i can’t help myself. i see so many typos all the time. signs all over the place. and it’s funny that the article references that you guys find *missing* apostrophes, cause i always find EXTRA apostrophes. “employee’s only.” employee’s WHAT only?

i want to meet you. i want to hang out with you. i purposely don’t use capitalization when i blog, but it’s an aesthetic choice. to tom shigalis .. it’s funny, i hate when i see people write “walgreen’s.” cause i know that it’s not the proper way to write it. i think walgreens is their last name? who knows. but i hate to see walgreen’s. it’s wrong!

anyway, i love all you word nerds.

By: Molly

Molly — Thu, 22 May 2008 03:41:31 +0000

I read in Schott’s Almanac about the Oxford Comma, which is indeed optional! It is the comma that comes before “and” in a series, and while it is optional, I like it!

By: Tom Shilgalis

Tom Shilgalis — Thu, 22 May 2008 03:28:07 +0000

I’m with you guys!
On another front, as a math teacher I’m on the lookout for innumeracy in the form of price tags and sale announcements. Every thoughtful person knows that an item marked .79c actually costs less than a penny, even though the intended price is 79c, the “c” being a cents sign not available in this font. I once was asked to leave Arby’s when I tried to get a sandwich for a penny (”Keep the change!”) by using a professionally printed coupon that gave the price as .99c. I got the sandwich but was told not to return.
Like you, I usually get a “huh?” when I call a merchant on such an error.

By the way, why go easy (apostrophically) on corporations such as Menards (sic), Talbots (sic) and Walgreens (sic)? Kudos, however, to McDonald’s and others.