mistakes Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Scott Flood Writing

MORE MISTAKES, MISHAPS, AND OUTRIGHT GOOFS

November 18, 2015 by Scott Flood

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 … Read more

MISTAKES, MISHAPS & EDUCATIONAL SILLINESS

May 20, 2015 by Scott Flood

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 … Read more

ACCURACY IS AN INDICATOR

February 5, 2014 by Scott Flood

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 favorite analogy for typos is the sales rep who shows up in a perfectly tailored Armani suit with a dazzling silk tie and a smile to match. His sales pitch is perfect and his product is worthy of your business. But this poor fellow enjoyed a corned-beef sandwich at lunch, and he didn’t notice when a dab of mustard dribbled off the sandwich and onto his tie.

FOOLS ABOUT SCHOOLS

January 29, 2014 by Scott Flood

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 Gutermuth shared one from the Johnson County Daily Journal. The January 19 headline for an online story on local results of Indiana’s school evaluation system read “After grades drop, school puts pencil to pape.” We’ll assume that will improve its grad.

MORE GAFFES AND LAUGHS

January 9, 2013 by Scott Flood

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 impossible to get it right.

Professionals who should know better, on the other hand …

DO TYPOS REALLY MATTER?

June 20, 2012 by Scott Flood

As social media continues to explode, a subset of users is frustrating some posters and delighting many others. Viewed as the evil grammar police by their critics, these are the people who take time to point out grammatical and spelling mistakes in their friends’ and associates’ posts. Some of us see them as heroes.

The casual nature of Facebook, Twitter, and whatever social media channel we’ll all be using next month leads many users to take a fairly sloppy approach to communicating. As long as their meaning gets across to their followers, who cares whether it’s spelled correctly or structured properly?

PROOFREADING: DON’T NEGLECT THE OBVIOUS

May 25, 2011 by Scott Flood

Mistakes can be funny. They can be embarrassing. And when they’re in your marketing communications materials, they can also be costly or even dangerous. That’s why proofreading is so important.

My experience has taught me that there is a certain kind of error that proofreaders miss more often than any other kind … and it’s quite possibly the most embarrassing type (except perhaps for substituting a call-in sex line’s phone number for your own).

BIZARRE FUNDRAISERS AND A TORNADIC GOOF

May 4, 2011 by Scott Flood

While I’d never try to find the light side in the horrific tornados that scraped across the southern U.S. last week, I can’t let one story I read pass without comment. The story made reference to one of the Alabama communities that was devastated.

One line in the story read: Neighborhoods there were leveled by a massive tornado caught on video by a tower-mounted news camera that barreled through late Wednesday afternoon.

Did you catch what jarred my brain?

The typo patrol is on the job

September 11, 2010 by Scott Flood

Had to share this excellent article about a pair of modern-day heroes every writer will appreciate. Thanks to Nancy Brandt for sending it my way. http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/102651174.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU

WHY WRITTEN CORRESPONDENCE REMAINS IMPORTANT

August 18, 2010 by Scott Flood

Some time back, I received a coupon ad from a pizza chain. The ad, which was produced by some out-of-town printer or ad agency, included several familiar Indiana towns. It was designed to create the impression that the chain’s stores were really locally oriented pizza parlors.

But there was one town I hadn’t seen: Fishus.