The Proof Fairy » spelling

Make proofreading part of the process, not an afterthought!

Alison — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 11:39:11 +0000

I know I probably bang on about the importance of proofreading a little too much but it really should be a vital part of the process whenever you create marketing materials – and not just an afterthought. Time and time again I find evidence that proofreading after the event can be an expensive exercise!

The latest high profile case of this was featured in The Guardian on Saturday. The story led like this:

The American author Jonathan Franzen might justly be called a perfectionist: his latest opus, Freedom, took nine years of painstaking effort to complete inside a spartan writing studio – and is now being widely acclaimed as a modern masterpiece.

So it is particularly unfortunate that, thanks to an apparent mistake by his typesetters, the version published in Britain has been found to be littered with errors.

In a highly embarrassing move, publishers HarperCollins were today forced to offer to exchange thousands of copies after Franzen revealed that the UK edition of a novel dubbed “the book of the century” is based on an early draft manuscript, and contains hundreds of mistakes in spelling, grammar and characterisation.

The publishers are alleging that the copy of the book that went to print was in fact an early draft, not the final version. Incredible really – it only takes a simple numerical renaming of every draft to see easily which the latest one is – but then, mistakes do happen.

So how will this impact on HarperCollins? It could prove very expensive for them if they are to recall all 80,000 copies. Fellow publisher Jonathan Blake comments:

HarperCollins is not planning a full scale recall of the 80,000 hardback copies in bookshops for logistical reasons. Such a print run would have cost the publisher around £70,000, with distribution and other costs ramping the amount up to around £100,000.

In other words, unless purchasers specifically request a replacement, the incorrect books will remain on the shelves! Before you rush out to stock up and sell them on eBay, there’s little chance that they will become valuable or collectible though, with such a high print run.

(Full article here)

Clkoser to home, I have dealt with clients who made similar mistakes – and it has cost them dearly. One company asked me to proofread the copy for a new website – but not till after the site had gone live. The site was littered with mistakes so not only did they have to pay me for the proofreading, they also had to recall the web designer, whose bill for editing the site wasn’t small.

And I’ve lost count of the number of people I meet who have errors in their marketing materials. They know they’re there, but they didn’t get them properly checked before the artwork went to print. And with most businesses running on tight budgets, there’s not a lot you can do with 5,000 incorrect leaflets other than hand them out despite the typos!

So okay, this is a business plug, but it’s also a very inexpensive tip too. Before you send anything off to print, get it checked first!

3 examples of why proofreading is so important

Alison — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:54:30 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot of proofreading recently, on a variety of topics. One of my clients writes business tenders and he gets me to check them all over before they’re submitted – when competition for a contract is tough, it could be the one or two small typos that slip through that make all the difference. Another client is an aspiring author, and I have been proofreading his first three chapters before he sends them off to publishers – again they could be rejected if there are spelling mistakes or poor grammar. Most of the errors I pick up are fairly unexciting, but there have been a few high profile ones recently that bring home just how important proofreading really is. I hope the following will bring a smile to your face – and also make you double check your work from now on (or, better still, send it to me!)

One of the most high-profile typos in recent months has to be the “ground black people” in an Australian cookbook. The phrase, which of course should have been “ground black pepper”, appeared in The Pasta Bible and led to all 7,000 copies being destroyed, at a cost of over $AU20,000! Amazingly, the Head of Publishing at Penguin Australia defended the proofreader responsible for letting the error through, saying that they would have been “concentrating on checking quantities, a common source of error in cookbooks” and that as almost every page would have included ground black pepper as an ingredient, he saw this as “quite forgivable”. Not so forgivable when it was an expensive error that caused a lot of offence too …

This next error was spotted in Birmingham by 4Networking member Richard Heathcote. Perhaps the error is intentional and aimed at getting people to talk about it – in which case it’s certainly worked. Mind you, I think I’d be wary about buying a property built by a company who apparently show so little attention to detail …

Apparently, the building opposite had an identical poster but with “appartment” instead of “aptartment” …. and that apostrophe shouldn’t be there, either!

Finally, an error closer to home (for me anyway) that appeared in the Oxford Mail – a newspaper that is no slouch when it comes to typos. This one is probably one of its best/worst though, depending on how you view it. Check out the entry for March 2008 … Now I know local councils come in for a lot of abuse, but maybe this is going a step too far?!

More proof that spell checkers aren’t perfect

Alison — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:37:41 +0000

This poem proves perfectly why you should never ever rely on a spell checker. A basic one will allow through all these words, even though over half of them are incorrectly used. A more sophisticated spell checker will pick up that words are wrong within the context … but would everyone know what to replace them with?

CANDIDATE FOR A PULLET SURPRISE

By Jerrold H. Zar

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it’s weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when eye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o’er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker’s
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we’re lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault’s with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word’s fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw’s are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.

Title suggested by Pamela Brown.
Based on opening lines suggested by Mark Eckman.

By the author’s count, 127 of the 225 words of the poem are incorrect
(although all words are correctly spelled).

Published in the Journal of Irreproducible Results, Jan/Feb1994, page 13. Reprinted Vol. 45, No. 5/6, 2000, page 20.

The the impotence of proofreading

Alison — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:14:14 +0000

Yes, you did read the title right! This video, featuring American poet Taylor Mali, is a great example of why you should never trust the spellchecker!