Again and again, I see proof of professional reliance on spellcheckers instead of good old proofreading and editing. Case in point: a Northwest Indiana Times article about funding for safety improvements on the South Shore Railroad. The reporter included this bullet point: “Implementation of Positive Train Control, a federally mandated safety system that tracks the precise location […]
Whether mistakes are just amusing, horribly damaging, or simply embarrassing, they don’t belong in your marketing communications materials. That’s why proofreading is so important. That said, there’s a certain kind of error that proofreaders miss more often than any other … and it’s quite embarrassing (well, not as much as substituting a call-in sex line’s […]
It happens so often that I have trouble believing it. People inadvertently reveal a little more than they want us to know about them. They post a confession and an apology: “Sorry for the incontinence.” Sure, we know (or at least we hope) that they’re really not apologizing for bladder problems. We’re hoping they really […]
Many people confuse the plural and possessive forms of words, and I usually cut individuals some slack when they make the wrong choice. But when the world’s largest chain of ice cream shops does it in its advertising, I can’t let it go. This promotional piece for Baskin-Robbins suggests that we “Celebrate…The Holiday’s” with a […]
I’ve recently seen several mistakes involving the wrong word used in place of another that sounds identical, but is spelled differently and carries a vastly different meaning. An Indianapolis Star article about flooding had a caption that began “Storms dye down …” The writer meant to say “die down,” as in taper away, not “dye […]
Most people who insert foreign-language phrases and expressions into their materials do so because it makes them appear to be intelligent and sophisticated, n’est-ce pas? That is, it does unless they misspell the phrase or don’t really understand what it means. A particularly common error involves using the marvelous French word “voilà” (“behold” or “there […]
Many words that are similar carry very different meanings, but that doesn’t stop people from misusing them. Generally, they’ll accept a correction in the intended spirit, but that isn’t always the case. I remember one situation in which a client was so convinced that his misunderstanding was actually correct that I lost his business. He […]
Writers who are unfamiliar with a word shouldn’t use it … or should check with someone who knows it before they include it in a story. Ideally, an editor will spot a misuse and intervene. But neither of those things happened in a restaurant review in the March 22 edition of Nuvo, an Indianapolis newsweekly. […]
Maybe you think that those of us who call attention to typos and similar mistakes are being pedantic, or anal-retentive, just plain picky. If the meaning is conveyed, who cares about whether the words are spelled right or sentences are properly structured? Nobody, if it’s a comment about your Saturday night outing at the local […]
Imagine that you have a brochure or newsletter article in front of you, and some of the type is printed in blue. Now take your index finger, and tap it repeatedly. Did anything happen? The object may have developed a slight dimple and you received some kind of repetitive stress injury, but did anything else […]
