Word Woes—Misspelling Mishaps

Author: Ellen Cline; Published: Jan 6, 2012; Category: Editing and Proofing; Tags: editing, homonym errors, proofreading, writing; No Comments

I’ve been stumbling upon mistakes in places where I have rarely noticed them in the past: The New York Times Book Review, The Visual Thesaurus Word of the Day, even the J. Peterman catalog, which used to be known as the best example of catalog writing out there.

These are not all homonym problems, but a variety of typos, misspellings, misuses, and missing words.You’re not the only one making mistakes. Everyone needs an editor, even the editor. But let’s try to learn something from these mishaps.

First, two examples from the Visual Thesaurus Word of the Day, a daily email I really enjoy receiving and which usually is very well written and edited.

• Border Crossing Word of the Day: limbo
  Theologians get credit for introducing this Latin word (meaning "border") that originally denoted a place where your not-quite-pure soul might cool its heals, whilst awaiting a possibly better final destination.

(Your soul, if it had feet, would be more likely to be “cooling its heels,” I imagine than “cooling its heals.”)

• Say What You Will Word of the Day: bequeath
  The wish to assert a controlling hand after you’ve cashed in your chips is surely as hold as humanity, for bequeath — give by will after your death -is among the first words to appear in English.

(Here a simple typo, “hold” for “old” gives the phrase an interesting alliterative twist, but warps the meaning.)

In a review of the book, “The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris,” by David McCullough, written by Stacy Schiff, in a section talking about the Franco-Prussian War, I found this:

• A reliable topic of conversation in Paris, food was the principal one during the German siege, when cat meat revealed itself be a delicacy and Paris solved its rat problem.

(Just a tiny word, “to,” is missing, but it makes the whole sentence wrong.)

In the J. Peterman catalog, in a description for the Tie-Shoulder-Dress, the generally witty copy was marred by this example of a misused word:

• Let’s not even mention the fact there’s a cocktail with your namesake at the Polo Lounge. Yes, yes, your capriciousness always keeps them guessing.

(The cocktail cannot be “with your namesake.” It can be a cocktail with your name or named after you. For namesake to work in this sentence, it would need to say the cocktail is your namesake.)

And last but not least, I found this in a local magazine, in the letter from the editor:

• Jacob McGee is called a high-rise technician. That might not mean much for most of us. But he’s the guy who straps himself into a harness and repels down high-rise buildings to clean their windows. Well, weather permitting, of course.

(I guess he hopes he repels from instead of attracts to the building as it might hurt when he smashes into it. It would probably be safer if he rappelled.)

“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”

Author: Ellen Cline; Published: May 11, 2011; Category: Business Writing, Communications Tools, Editing and Proofing, Message Simplicity; Tags: Business Writing, critiquing marketing materials, editing, Persuading Readers, Simple Message, writing; No Comments

Often time is limited and something needs to go out now. As Blaise Pascal stated, "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." In other words, writing fast and writing concisely are often at odds.

I do a profile each week for the Church of Beethoven. I have 140 words and maybe 15 minutes to do it.

For tweets from Working Like Dogs and National Assistance Dog Week (@WLDogs and @NADWeek) which I started doing recently, I have 140 characters and no time.

What do I get out of it? For the 140-word Church of Beethoven profiles, I interview an audience member or volunteer before or after the show. The profile appears in the weekly e-news that goes out on Wednesdays. I learn a lot of amazing things about the people, their interests, their background, and their work, so that’s fun.

For the 140-character tweets, which I actually almost always do through Facebook (trying to save time by posting once), I have to skim news items and figure out what the main point is, then make it short. So like the profiles, I learn a lot, but am always in a hurry, struggling to be efficient, accurate, yet hopefully interesting.

But what about the readers? What do they get out of it? Are these items reaching and teaching or motivating them?

Now that we have less time and space than ever, are we getting better at focusing our messages? Or just creating large quantities of short and not very meaningful messages?

There have always been limitations for marketing professionals: the ¼ page print ad, the billboard, the :15 second spot, the text link on the web page. And of course there’s editing to fit the space:  I just had to cut someone’s op-ed down from 1200 words to 600.

But do extremely short messages, like tweets, push us even further?  And do they really help us communicate effectively?

It’s not just brevity, but speed. When we have to get something out before it is no longer news, that makes it a rush. When we have to make it short, and do it fast, have we gone beyond what is possible? 

Going back to that quote from Pascal—everyone seems to understand that writing short takes more time. But in the current zeitgeist we are expected to do both, fast and short, each and every time. Is this really working?

Word Woes—homonym horrors III

Author: Ellen Cline; Published: Apr 18, 2011; Category: Editing and Proofing; Tags: editing, homonym errors, proofreading, writing; No Comments

Sometimes you see them, sometimes you don’t. 

Although they’re always out there, lurking, periods of time go by where I just don’t notice too many juicy homonym horrors. Then again, sometimes they just seem to be everywhere I look. It’s been a slow period, but here are several I collected in recent months.

Last week I saw one in an invitation to a winery event that sounded really great, even if the food descriptions had gone a bit awry

• This week…will prepare some special hors d’oeuvres in addition to our normal fair. Chef…will serve wild mushroom bites with a red wine sauce, wanton cups filled with mandarin chicken salad and mini onion tartlets with goat cheese. Truly tasty!

I’m sure it all is truly tasty, but when we’re talking about food it’s generally fare, not fair, unless you’re talking about fair trade. As for those wanton cups, just tell them to stop that inappropriate behavior. I’m guessing they meant wonton cups, as in something made from a wonton wrapper.

In March I was reading a really fun and fascinating book, J. Maarten Troost’s “The Sex Lives of Cannibals.” I had barely begun when I came upon this:

• Enwetak was being canvassed as a sight for testing the hydrogen bomb and the drilling indicated that the atoll was suitable for obliteration.

The author explains in the book how some of these atolls are really difficult to spot from the sea until you’re practically right on them, but in this case I think he meant site, as in place or location, not sight, as in able to see something.

In the February issue of Consumer Reports, Goofs, glitches, gotchas section,
someone sent in a Political ad saying:

• Guy Glodis Will Reign in Wasteful Political Spending.

Of course they meant “rein in” not reign in.  I don’t think they wanted to say that their candidate was the king of political spending. But you have to visualize reining in a horse and know what reins are to pick the right word. 

Glodis lost the race.  The power of words?