The Great Typo Hunt_ Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time - Jeff Deck [39]
After stowing our book haul, we headed for the post office, housed in the lobby of a federal courthouse of impressive proportions. On the courthouse lawn I found an engraved sign with a small problem. They’d spelled METEOROLOGICAL wrong, leaving out the first o. While Benjamin got in line to mail a present back to Jenny, I went off to see if I could alert the town fathers to the error. I walked alone down the vast and echoing hall and came to a security gate manned by a white-haired guard. I said, through the gate, “Hello there. I noticed a typo on the sign on the lawn outside, and I was wondering who I should talk to about having it fixed?”
I turned my camera on and found the appropriate picture in its memory, then handed it over to show him. He accepted the camera through the gate, which began beeping at the intrusion of a metal object. I said, “See how meteorological is missing an o?”
He nodded. “Yep. But they’d need an engraver to fix that, and the way this town spends money, I don’t think it’s likely to happen.”
Well, he’d know best. Though disappointed, I could not have even feigned surprise that this one had gotten by us. “All right, thanks for your time.”
“One other thing,” the old sentinel added, as he handed me back my camera, this time around the gate. “You want to be more careful with this camera. Taking pictures of the inside or outside of a courthouse is a federal offense.”
“But my picture was of a sign on the lawn of the courthouse,” I said. “Not of the courthouse itself.”
He shook his head. “They …,” and he let the word linger, either considering his next words or making a thoughtful distinction, “… could still construe it as the courthouse, and confiscate your camera. So don’t take any pictures around here. Especially not of the inside!”
Thanks for the tip, I thought. Maybe such a policy existed, and he was showing me mercy, this man bound by the iron fetters of bureaucracy. Or maybe he was feeding me an extra helping of tripe. At the time, I just didn’t know. I said, “Thanks,” and scurried back outside.
Both this incident and the affair of the Locker struck me as examples of a peculiar kind of blindness or, perhaps more accurately, nearsightedness: fixating upon one stately elm while missing the proverbial forest behind it. For the style-guide naifs, and the AP-style devotees, their tree was assumptions about language convention that they had never thought to question. For the federal overseers, it was security at all costs, laying down rules with a rational premise and then enforcing them to the point of paranoia. Galveston boasts a beautiful courthouse, and I’m guessing that not everyone who wants to take pictures of it is a terrorist. Though, in fairness, at least I still have my camera, which the guard could have confiscated.
Ahh, but all hunters must take care not to fall victim to their own weapons. Visual impediment is a hazard of typo hunting itself, since the sport is about zooming in on the little details of our surroundings, focusing on elements that are oft taken for granted while ignoring the broader purposes of their existence. Woe to any who entered that bookstore and saw only the “horor” of misspelled words, but missed that glorious fantasy and sci-fi selection! I vowed that in my quest, I would never lose sight of the spirit of whatever text I came across, or whatever institution fate brought my way.
I wish that there weren’t an