OMG! A Typo!
Did you find a typo in my last blog post? In this blog post? In one of YOUR blog posts? Did it make you crazy? Was the meaning of the post changed because of the typo? Then, why is everyone so up in arms about typos? Even the NY Times and USA Today have typos, occasionally. Published books, whether self-published or traditionally published, often contain typos. If you’re leaving blogs because of typos, you need to chill out.
Having a typo in a post does not mean the writer has no standards, or the writer doesn’t know what she’s writing about, or that the writer is an idiot. It means she was probably typing too fast and in her hurry, she did not go back to review the post before clicking the publish button.
If I had a dollar for every time someone writes to me about a typo – I’d have a nice little pile of money. Enough to take a weekend vacation, I think.
Truth be told – typos happen. Truth be told – if you’re agonizing over a typo in a blog post (written by you or by someone else) get over it. If the writer routinely has typos, maybe you shouldn’t be reading that person’s writing. Maybe they aren’t up to your standards.
If the writer has occasional typos, why can’t you chalk it up to fast fingers and just move on? If the typos does, indeed, change the tone or message of the post, let the author know so she can post an update. If the purpose and message are in tact, just move on. Now, I know of a case where an author’s name was misspelled on the cover of her book – published by a big publishing house. What do you think happened? Nothing. They had printed 10,000 copies. They were not going to fix it or recall the books and print more. She had to live with it.
(this post is in response to discovering a typo in a post I wrote last November – it did not change the message of the post at all; no one wrote to me about it, I was disturbed to see it today, but…in the end, the post is intact, I know my fingers sometimes type things I don’t want them to – and what’s up with that?- so I did not fix the post; had I found the typo within a couple of days of the post, I would have fixed it – I just see no reason to fix it now; and I’ve left many a typo alone because I actually believe readers can move beyond the one mistake – unless it’s a link that doesn’t work or the typo changes the sentence to convey a wrong message)
p.s. don’t even get me started on twitter – plse!
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