The Great Typo Hunt_ Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time - Jeff Deck [11]
A year ago, while preparing for the GRE, I’d brought home a shower curtain festooned with mathematical principles. Though I enjoyed the reminders for binomial multiplication, the definition of an obtuse angle caused me acute pain. This first text in need of correction actually featured two for the price of one: a wandering comma, and a that for a than. I uncorked my new vial of elixir, took out a black marker, and went to work. Two downed typos later, I’d cleansed the errors from the tapestry of knowledge.
I’d bounded off to a great start, two for two. Or, wait—I set the marker and elixir of correction on the sink and took a step back. I ought to be conservative in my counting of typos, so that no one could accuse me of inflating my numbers. Each sign corrected would count as one typo, regardless of how many typos existed within the same sign. Thus, in my dim and dingy bathroom, I established the official policy for the League’s reckoning of typos. I would maintain two totals: one for total typos found during the trip, and another for total number of those typos actually corrected. The ratio of the former to the latter would become a source of statistical obsession for Benjamin throughout the trip.
The next day I hit the pavement to seek out grammatical malefaction wherever it might lurk. Though not exactly renowned for its politeness and good cheer, Boston served as my home turf, so I figured it’d be safe territory for learning as I went. With typo correction supplies unceremoniously stuffed into my backpack, I headed out for my first mission. Plus I had a doctor’s appointment in Brighton. As I surrendered my wallet to the rapacious gullet of the Massachusetts health-care system, I noted a stack of business cards with a troubling interpretation of the word referral. “Referal”!* To think that one little letter could mean the difference between directing someone to the help they needed and … returning to savagery?
I steeled myself, preparing for battle. My first time talking to someone. About typos, that is. “Excuse me,” I said to the young, earring-bedecked man behind the counter, “there’s a typo on these cards.”
He checked for himself, as I had hoped he would. The guy sounded genuinely embarrassed on behalf of Brighton Marine Medical Center as he mentioned that he’d never noticed the missing r.
I paused, and not merely in anticipation of a further response. I had a terrifying vision that he’d give me the go-ahead and then watch, intrigued at first, as I inserted the r into each and every card. He’d forget all about me until a few hours later, when I’d hand the stack back to him, and he’d produce a box from behind his desk with an innocent smile and say, “Oh, hey, I found a couple more.” I’d start the trip two days late and with a sprained correcting arm, only to find a comment from Josh on my blog the next day: “NO, THAT’S CHEATING. You can’t count that as five hundred typos found and corrected. They’re the same error!” So violently taken aback by this condemnation was I that I broke my reverie with a stumble, jerking back as though I’d caught a kryptonite bullet in the shoulder.
A puzzled stare met my eyes. Right, he’d never noticed the missing r before, and now awaited either our next topic or my graceful departure. I shook my head, as if clearing away any last hopes that my mission would be simple, then offered in a resigned (but hopefully sane) tone, “I suppose this will never be fixed.”
No. There were thousands of them, the young man assured me. Thousands of errors found, none corrected. No way would I type that into the blog. The Josh-like commentary inside my head had it right. It could only count as one error, no matter how many times it had been printed. The ultimate goal would be to have the next print run corrected (assuming the clients could still read after they’d all been re-feralized).
Fine, so now I had another rule that could help ward against accusations of inflating my count. Multiple copies of the