Tag Archives | mistakes

Year-end goofs and gaffes

By Scott Flood on December 30, 2019 in General rants, Mistakes & Mishaps 0

From time to time, I share embarrassing mistakes writers shouldn’t have made. I don’t target well-meaning amateurs — only professional writers and editors who should know better. Some recent examples: A September political newsletter from the Indianapolis Business Journal referenced a candidate forum by noting, “It wasn’t a true debate persay; all of the questions […]

Getting naked at the grocer and other flubs

By Scott Flood on January 16, 2019 in Mistakes & Mishaps, Online Words

A local food retailer undergoing a major renovation apparently intended to plead for patience on a social media site, but wound up asking for participation in a nudist event. The retailer’s post asked customers to “please bare with us,” which is actually asking them to disrobe. Clearly (I hope), the store wanted customers to “bear” […]

When proofreading, don’t skip the familiar

By Scott Flood on August 8, 2018 in General rants, Mistakes & Mishaps, Online Words

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 […]

Another set of goofs and gaffes

By Scott Flood on September 20, 2017 in General rants, Mistakes & Mishaps

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 […]

Who really gives a damn about typos?

By Scott Flood on December 21, 2016 in General rants, Mistakes & Mishaps, Online Words

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 […]

MORE MISTAKES, MISHAPS, AND OUTRIGHT GOOFS

By Scott Flood on November 18, 2015 in General rants, Mistakes & Mishaps

As you’d expect, the Indiana School Boards Association is an advocate for schools, so it’s no surprise that the Summer 2015 issue of their Journal included an exhortation from the group’s president to get members fired up. But you’ll probably be surprised that she was calling for the group to “lead the fight for pubic […]

MISTAKES, MISHAPS & EDUCATIONAL SILLINESS

By Scott Flood on May 20, 2015 in Anything else, General rants, Mistakes & Mishaps

One of the most commonly misused word pairs is flare/flair, but it was distressing to see the Indianapolis Star make that mistake in a recent headline. The item was a brief review of a restaurant that serves Latin American cuisine, and the headline read “Brunch with Latin flare”. I assume they meant that the food […]

ACCURACY IS AN INDICATOR

By Scott Flood on February 5, 2014 in General rants, Marketing Wisdom, Mistakes & Mishaps

To some people, worrying about misspellings and typos is a foolish waste of time. They brush it off as some kind of annoyance or a miniscule matter that isn’t worthy of their attention — and they regard writers, editors, and others who do their best to spot and eliminate those mistakes as “anal retentive.” My […]

FOOLS ABOUT SCHOOLS

By Scott Flood on January 29, 2014 in General rants, Mistakes & Mishaps

We’ll continue our ongoing series of typos, wrong words, misspellings, and other goofs with a look at three embarrassing mistakes by media professionals who were covering education issues. There’s a particular sense of unease when mistakes creep into education coverage (or, for that matter, when materials created by schools contain mistakes). Eagle-eyed typo spotter Steve […]

MORE GAFFES AND LAUGHS

By Scott Flood on January 9, 2013 in General rants, Mistakes & Mishaps

Time to take another look at mistakes that wound up in print. Sometimes, I’m tempted to include gems from the Internet, but I don’t think it’s fair to poke fun at everyday folks, especially when they might be posting to Facebook from one of those smartphones with a touch-screen keyboard so small that it’s nearly […]

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