This product will haunt your lips forever. As seen in an advertisement for lip butter:
“Supernatural” is a word, which is why software probably didn’t pick it up. Be careful with your spelling!
Proofreading errors
Inedible Spelling Mistake
If you read this carefully, you’ll realize this menu item would be dangerous to consume…and potentially disgusting.
What funny misspellings have you seen lately?
Killer Menu Misspelling
I couldn’t resist posting a picture of this menu misspelling and the image it conjures – diners must have been calling the local fire department!
Imagine a waiter delivering this at a restaurant!
eBook Plague – Errors Aplenty
“Annoying.” “Very irritating.” These are just a couple of the most common descriptives readers are using when talking about their frustrations with the numerous errors in e-books.
These readers are asking Amazon and other e-book distributors for refunds without finishing the books….and they’re getting them. This should be Chapter 1 in the “Don’t Let This Happen To You” handbook for indie writers.
It’s such a prevalent problem that there are entire forum threads in which readers are complaining about this problem. To give you some idea of their feelings, one of those readers said, “I really believe that writers need to make an effort and deliver a product worthy of what we are paying for it.”
Another contributor voiced a similar feeling, which sums up the sentiments of most, “When I pay for a book, I want it to be done correctly.”
Yet another reader had great advice for writers, “Stand out in the crowd – make that effort, and give readers the best experience possible. They’ll thank you with repeat business and recommendations.”
Information like this is extremely valuable to indie authors because it gives us important insights into what readers want, don’t want, and won’t tolerate. And let’s face it – once you turn a reader off with so many errors that they can’t read on, they’re not likely to give your upcoming books a chance.
So how can an author produce the cleanest copy and best possible experience for his/her readers? Some rely on proofreading software, but that doesn’t always do the trick. Here’s why:
1. Much like spell checking tools, many times it will allow incorrect words to remain unquestioned because they’re spelled correctly.
2. It won’t always pick up repetitions of words or phrases and so many other things that require a trained human proofreading eye.
3. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) scans are notorious for misreading certain letter combinations, especially in certain fonts: “th” can be misread as “til”, “1” instead of “i” or “l”, and “rn” is misread as “m”.
Rampant misspellings, punctuation errors, characterization problems (among the top three complaints), and spacing issues should all be corrected before you publish your book, especially if you introduce it through a limited time free offer – lots of readers take advantage of those offers, and word will quickly spread if they are annoyed by errors. As the saying goes, “you never get a second chance to make a first impression”.
Don’t take chances – nothing beats the accuracy of a sharp, trained, professional proofreader’s eye.
Hot Today, Cold Tamale…Another Menu Misspelling
Restaurant menus are fertile grounds for misspellings that are either funny or create double entendres. This one actually gave its customers the wrong impression, as the entire dish was hot:
So this hot dish has a chilled sauce? Interesting…. 😉
The funny thing is that “chili” was used in almost every dish on the menu, and it was correctly spelled everywhere else! Sometimes I think restaurant owners do these things on purpose just to give us a chuckle. 🙂
How Many Bananas?
The saddest misprint is a huge misprint. I found this mistake on a huge banner at a picnic event, and the sentence above was, unfortunately, one of the selling points of the product. The “e” has been left off from the word “one”. It should read “More potassium than one banana”. When I read this sentence, I actually couldn’t figure out what it said at first and had to reread it a few times. What a shame to pay for a valuable piece of advertising without the benefit of having it proofread first!
Proofreading 101: The “Mined” Chicken Incident
Here’s a fun little typo from a restaurant menu – it insinuates that the chicken was actually mined, the way diamonds or gold would be.
Funny, I always thought that chickens were farmed, not mined! 😉 That proofreading error – “mined” instead of “minced” – flashed this image in my mind:
“Mined” chicken!
Another case where a detached second-party proofreader would have caught and eliminated the error!
Ironic Forbes Error
This misspelling – and obvious proofreading oversight – was in a June 2, 2013 Forbes article titled, “Book Publishing May Actually Save Itself”. What’s ironic is that the error appeared in an article about publishing! And the misspelled word, which should have been spelled “Hackathon”, was the subject of most of the article.
Forbes’ sales probably won’t decline due to mistakes like this, but books, articles, or publications without as much credibility – especially those just trying to establish themselves – may not fare as well. It’s always best to have your work reviewed by a detached expert.
Wall Street Journal Gaffe
Believe it or not, this typo appeared in the May 20, 2013 Wall Street Journal article, “Considering an Underground Park in New York”. Spell check doesn’t pick things like this up. Yet another glaring example of why everyone who writes needs a proofreader!
Seinfeld DVD Proofreading Mistake
Check out this Seinfeld DVD cover which has a major proofreading mistake:
There’s an extra “s” on Season!
Do you see the extra “s” on the word “Season”? How could they miss that?
Many people may have checked this cover before it was published, but it takes a trained eye to catch tiny but crucial errors like this.