OMG, you've described me! It DOES feel like a brain condition. I started my career, long ago, as an editor, and I always say, "Once an editor, always an editor — it's a curse!" Sometimes I wish I didn't see all the errors, including what's wrong with TV shows, etc. (like the way people in period pieces use turns of phrases that no one used till a few years ago). I partly appreciate it but also feel it can keep me from fully enjoying stuff. Do you have that feeling at all?
I appreciate your pointing out that proofreading is about more than just typos, too. There's more to it than people realize!
Thanks Rosana. I have been known to tell movie theater employees that their signs have typos. It does feel a bit weird sometimes but as I get older I’ve made peace with my weirdness.
I had a wonderful editing teacher who told us a story about a friend of his who wouldn't eat at a restaurant unless there was at least one typo on the menu. They went to a fancy restaurant, and he started getting a bit nervous because he couldn't find a typo. Then he saw that they were offering steak "cooked to your likeness," and he breathed a sigh of relief.
When I was a newspaper reporter, sometimes someone would call in complaining about a typo on the bottom of page C16 or something like that. And I wanted to say, "Did you see all the many thousands of words we spelled correctly?" :-)
One of my favorite typos was instead of "chronic fatigue syndrome" we printed "Chronicle fatigue syndrome." The newspaper was The Chronicle.
OMG, you've described me! It DOES feel like a brain condition. I started my career, long ago, as an editor, and I always say, "Once an editor, always an editor — it's a curse!" Sometimes I wish I didn't see all the errors, including what's wrong with TV shows, etc. (like the way people in period pieces use turns of phrases that no one used till a few years ago). I partly appreciate it but also feel it can keep me from fully enjoying stuff. Do you have that feeling at all?
I appreciate your pointing out that proofreading is about more than just typos, too. There's more to it than people realize!
Thanks Rosana. I have been known to tell movie theater employees that their signs have typos. It does feel a bit weird sometimes but as I get older I’ve made peace with my weirdness.
I had a wonderful editing teacher who told us a story about a friend of his who wouldn't eat at a restaurant unless there was at least one typo on the menu. They went to a fancy restaurant, and he started getting a bit nervous because he couldn't find a typo. Then he saw that they were offering steak "cooked to your likeness," and he breathed a sigh of relief.
That's hilarious.
When I was a newspaper reporter, sometimes someone would call in complaining about a typo on the bottom of page C16 or something like that. And I wanted to say, "Did you see all the many thousands of words we spelled correctly?" :-)
One of my favorite typos was instead of "chronic fatigue syndrome" we printed "Chronicle fatigue syndrome." The newspaper was The Chronicle.