Typographical Errors?

Typographical errors are part of being human, since our brains are designed to gloss over small details and fill in from context. It’s not a matter of being “smart,” but how we’ve survived over millions of years of evolution. Those who noticed the lion hiding in the grass — even though lions are perfectly suited to hide in the grass — and guessed straight away that it was a lion, even though they couldn’t really see every detail, even if they looked very carefully when they should have been running away, did much better over time than those who noticed that “Those colours don’t really go well together,” or “Does it strike anyone else as odd that Mickey Mouse only has three fingers on his hands?”

So if you’re one of those who finds it difficult to notice typos, you might console yourself with the realisation that this perfectly demonstrates the utility of not focusing on details, but rather extrapolating from subtle clues such as those leonine eyes, all by themselves, or even one of them, which allow the brain to hypothesize the lion’s body behind them, quicker than thought, and immediately make a rational decision about one’s future course of action based upon incomplete evidence.

It’s not only you, but all your ancestors, stretching back into prehistory, stretching back to before human beings were truly human, who possessed these intuitive skills, which kept them alive when they could have easily been dead, and most all of them couldn’t read worth a tinker’s dam.

Survivors take one look and scream, “Lion!!! Run for your lives!!!”

Philosophers look and say, “How curious, a lion’s head… I wonder what it’s doing out here?”

I don’t know it you’ve seen it, but this is an excellent example of why “typos” are very difficult to see:

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by ilstef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Almost everyone can read the above text almost as easily as if it were not jumbled. Speiling that’s only slihgtly off is easily overlooked by comparison, and the famous example of “little words” is fsmiliar to us all.

GUESTS PLEASE
KEEP OFF THE
THE GRASS!

Here’s a little test with seventeen errors:

Nothing is more embarassing than making a writing
mistake. Of course, we all think its funny when we
spot a mispelled word in magazine ads or on giant
billboards. If one of your employee’s are making the
the mistakes, it can be disasterous. And if you have a
a typo in a memo to the boss, how do you think they will
view your professionalism? These kind of mistakes can
be prevented, irregardless of the persons job title.
The people that make the mistakes can seriously effect
how other’s view you’re company. That can cost any
organization money and hurt it’s profits.

{Highlight to read}

1. “embarassing” should be “embarrassing”
2. “its” should be “it’s”
3. “mispelled” should be “misspelled”
4. “employee’s” should be “employees”
5. “are” (after employees) should be “is”
6. there are two “the”(s) in the third sentence
7. “disasterous” should be “disastrous”
8. There are two “a”(s) in the fourth sentence.
9. “they” (sentence 4) should be “he/she” or something
     like it. The epicene “they” is frowned upon
     by many authorities. This is a judgment
     call, though.
10. “kind” should be “kinds”
11. “irregardless” should be “regardless”
12. “persons” should be “person’s”
13. “that” (in the second to last sentence) should be “who”
14. “effect” should be “affect”
15. “other’s” should be “others”
16. “you’re” should be “your”
17. “it’s” ( in the last sentence) should be “its”

Here’s another chestnut:

Find the error; its almost impossible!

000
111
222
333
444
555
666
777
888
999

Did you know that 80% of UCSD students could not find the error above? Repost this with the Subject: ‘Find the error; its almost impossible!’ and when you click ‘Submit Post’, the answer will be really obvious.

{Highlight to read}

The answer, of course, is the old confusion between the possessive “apostrophe ‘S’ ” and the irregular forms of most English pronouns.

So it’s “his book,” not “he’s book.”

It’s “her book,” not “she’s book.”

“Whose book?” and not “Who’s book?”

And “its book,” not “it’s book.”

The reason it will “be obvious” is that the mistake will be in the subject line.

Epicene They

Puddin’