Typos, Mistakes and Autocorrect, Oh My!

Typos are inevitable; we’ve all seen them in articles published by major news corporations, in printed books, magazines, advertisements, social media and blog posts, you name it, they’re everywhere. And, we’ve all made them too.

I did a little digging around and found some interesting information about why they’re so ubiquitous. Tom Stafford, a psychologist at the University of Sheffield in the UK, actually studies the psychology behind typos and has this to say:

When you’re writing you’re trying to convey meaning. It’s a very high level task.

In other words, we’re so focused on getting our message across that we often miss details and typos. His work is far more detailed, so click here to read more.

Here are some of the typos I’ve made and found over the years.

I have made this one several times; ‘lick’ rather than ‘click’ to access a link. 👅 Luckily, I caught them before I hit publish.

In the post, La Rochelle, France, I made a very funny typo. In medieval times, a heavy chain was spread between two towers near the harbor to control the flow of ships into the port. I wrote that the chain was moved by a ‘wench’ rather than a ‘winch’; poor wench! And I actually hit publish! Luckily, I caught it quickly after publishing, so I don’t think anyone saw it.

When I was working as a project manager in medical research, I sent an email to a large group of researchers and addressed it ‘hell all’ rather than ‘hello all’. Like mentioned above, I was so involved with getting the details of the message correct, that I neglected to check the salutation. Luckily for me, no one took offense, in fact, I received a lot of good-natured teasing about it.

Here are a few others I’ve noticed over the years:

In a recipe – ‘veggie stick’ rather than ‘veggie stock’.

In a letter of recommendation the potential applicant was described as the ‘heart and sole’ of the department, rather than ‘soul’.

I saw a Facebook post once which a teenager sent to her father who was out of town on business. She said she couldn’t wait to see him soon. His reply was: see you soon ‘sweaty’ rather than ‘sweetie’.

I mentioned to a friend last year that we were planning a trip to Wales. In the reply they said, “have fun in ‘Whales’!”

Our dear friend Jim sent an email to his doctor, Dr. Franken, and autocorrect switched it to Dr. ‘Frankenstein’.

Here are a few I found online to make you smile:

I’m a writer, not an editor. So if I make a typo or a mistake, take it as part of the job. Mitta Xinindlu;

One piece of wisdom a writer quickly learns – typos keep you humble. E. A. Bucchianeri

What methods do you use to edit your posts? Do you have someone review them prior to publishing? An editor or someone else will look at your work differently than you, and will often catch any mistakes you’ve made. TheTravelsketcher and I usually proof-read each other’s posts prior to publishing, and we almost always find typos.

So, in conclusion, don’t feel stupid or ignorant when you make a typo, rather, embrace them and take comfort in the fact that your brain is hyper-focused.

Wishing you typo-free posts and cooperative autocorrect,

Tricia