The Great Typo Hunt_ Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time - Jeff Deck [78]
That sounded shockingly Hawkish for Benjamin. It came back to judgment. We’d been worried about the Atlanta typo on the Obama shirt, fearing that not merely the wearer, but our candidate himself, would be judged by that missing apostrophe.
My eyes strained at their nerve tethers, nearly jumping out of the sockets in pursuit of something I’d glimpsed while driving past. Benjamin hadn’t seen it. I doubled back and pulled Callie to a stop in front of the billboard. RESTUARANT!
“I’ve got it!” I declared as we ambled into the field. The billboard wasn’t up on a scaffold, but the error was still sufficiently elevated to make this a difficult correction. “I was close before.” We craned our necks up at the transposition. “People judge you by your mistakes, so we can help people avoid the scorn and judgment of others. If they don’t want the typos fixed … I guess they’re comfortable being judged.” Ugh, now I sounded overly Hawkish.
There was no way to fix this artfully. The best we’d be able to do was add little editorial arrows above and below to show where the letters should go. After a test leap proved inadequate, my lighter colleague placed himself immediately underneath the troubled letters. “Give me a leg up?” Clutching the marker in his teeth and walking his way up the sign with his hands, Benjamin let me hoist him up as high as we could send him, but even then he could only reach high enough for the bottom arrow. He got back down and I flexed my weary fingers.
“Afraid not,” Benjamin said as we marched back to Callie. “Keep working. I have a problem with your hypothetical judgmental people. You, Jeff, are the one who cares! Referring to some other person who might come by and make judgments sounds too much like … like what you hear on TV. ‘Some people think that Obama’s relationship with Reverend Wright is very telling.’ No, they don’t; the TV pundit wants to justify covering an attention-getting, ratings-boosting non-story. These hypothetical—these fictional—people give that pundit latitude to push his issues on us, or blatantly replace news with entertainment. You can’t slip into the comfort of doing the same, man. We correct typos because someone else might be bothered by them? It’s too circular, and you’re better than that.”
“Right. I’m getting closer, though. Give me a moment to rejigger my thoughts and try again.” We arrived at the home of my mentor from the Rocks & Minerals days, Marie. An editor herself, she dove right into the typo hunting while expertly tour-guiding us around Cincinnati.
Waiting for us to resume verbal fisticuffs, Benjamin wandered past something in the gift shop of the Krohn Conservatory. After pulling a double take, he read a note out loud: “The wood chopsticks stamped with an eternity design and are nestled in a double fish brocade pouch.” After a quick discussion over the best way to correct this, Benjamin added an arrow to indicate where the “are” should be moved to. “There, now future readers won’t get dizzy puzzling that one out.” He smiled.
Then I smiled. “It’s rude not to proofread.”
“You’re onto something, Mr. Deck, but be careful there.” As the eminent linguist David Crystal has pointed out, grammar and etiquette have long been tied together. The post-dictionary craze about proper grammar went hand in hand with an increasing obsession over proper rules for everyday interaction in polite society. Start with the fork the farthest out and work your way in; a gentleman walks on the right side