Typos appear to be running rampant through our society. The authors who keep making these mistakes have earned The Whiner of the Week.
Just this week, the campaign for Mitt Romney, released a new app for the iPhone. The problem is that it contains a typo and a rather big one of you’re running for national office. It features the word, “Amercia” instead of “America.”
In defense of Mr. Romney, high profile typos are a bipartisan issue. We’re seeing more and more of them and in surprising places.
Have you looked at online newspapers? I know that writers are under pressure to hit the publish button as soon as possible but it’s not a place where you expect to see frequent spelling and grammar mistakes.
Perhaps this is a consequence of speed being valued over accuracy. And maybe we’ve become so comfortable living in a world with spellcheck that we don’t think to use it anymore.
The online component of writing may have also dulled our grammar sixth sense. Mistakes can be easily fixed when someone notices them. It’s not like you’ve just written something in stone, where a correction is much harder to pound out.
I’m embarrassed to revisit some of my blog posts and notice my little mistakes. I’ve pledged to more attention to spelling and grammar. I won’t publish anything unless I’ve first read it out loud, something I’ve found can help reveal mistakes.
It’s a step that takes a few more seconds but something that shows respect for my readers, a quality that seems to be vanishing from our society.