Lauch Your Web Career

February 22nd, 2006

Filed under:
Books, Web Design

Lauch Your Web Career

I know this is the pot calling the kettle black, but check out the egregious spelling error on the cover of this book from O’Reilly (thanks, Colene). They’ve got it right over at Amazon, so they’ve already caught it on the actual cover.

On the subject of spelling and grammatical errors on this site, it’s pretty apparent that I don’t sweat the small stuff. I write entries as quickly as possible, and don’t necessarily spare the time to re-read them. I have a fixed amount of time to pay to this site, so I figure ‘more entries with a few errors’ is preferable to ‘fewer entries with no errors’. In my professional work, I’m much more careful, and happen to live with a superb proofreader.

Comments: 10 Responses so far

`jen
February 22nd, 2006
3:38 pm

at least they spelled “html” and “css” right…

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AxsDeny
February 22nd, 2006
4:01 pm

Maybe the person transcribing the text was being dictated to by someone with a head cold.

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Alastair Bird
February 22nd, 2006
7:51 pm

Maybe it’s been a long day, and I’m sure I’m staring it in the face, but where exactly is the error? I think it’s worth pointing out that all of the links and comments don’t actually state what the error is.
And it’s also worth pointing out that I probably rely on spell-check more than I should…

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Light & Dark
February 22nd, 2006
8:47 pm

Alastair, check the title of Darren’s post for a hint.

Speaking as someone who edits and proofs as part of my job, I think it’s probably more fair to call this a typo that should have been caught in proofing. I don’t doubt the editor can spell the word correctly, but yea, for this to get through on the cover?

This kind of thing brings up an issue I have with exactly what you’re talking about in your 2nd paragraph, Darren. It concerns me that if such an ‘egregious mistake’ can get through the proofing of the cover, how reliable is the content of the book?

That’s the same concern I have when reading a blog that’s full of grammatical and spelling mistakes. Especially if it’s mistakes that could have simply been caught with a spellchecker.

In no way is a spellchecker a replacement for careful editing and proofing, but if a writer won’t even make that much effort…

That said, for me this concern really only applies to writing the main focus of which is facts or research. If it’s someone’s opinions or observations, I try not to be that pedantic (but it’s still jarring to read, which is usually not the intended effect).

And now, as I click post, I’m sure I’m about to discover some embarrassing mistake of my own.

Paul

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Declan
February 23rd, 2006
12:47 am

Do you ever think about writing a book yourself Darren? Go on, give it a go, you have plenty of material to work with. And you clearly love to type.

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declan
February 23rd, 2006
4:52 am

There are two of us? :-)

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It's Samuel
February 23rd, 2006
6:01 am

If you (you, me, whoever) intend for people to read an article and to consider your opinion valid then you should make an effort to keep the typos and spelling errors to a minimum.

Otherwise people will think “Hey, this guy can’t even spell, why I want to trust his article”.

But I’m with you: my readers get the idea, no matter how many errors there are in it. The most important thing is readability and legibility.

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