 |
| Photo by Jeff Deck |
Let’s get this part out of the way: I’m a terrible copyeditor. I can’t spot typos for the life of me, my comma usage is suspect, and I wouldn’t know a dangling modifier from a split infinitive.
As a result, I really don’t get very exercised when I spot typos online or in books. I figure, hey. It happens! We’re all busy, right?
But sometimes I feel distinctly in the minority. As Amazon reviews can attest, people get extremely outraged about finding typos in books. The grammar and typo police takes no prisoner.
So, You Tell Me: Do typos annoy you? If so, why?
*rant continued*
Also: if you're just a buddy of mine, I could care less about your grammar in an unprofessional setting. But I will admit that I have a higher standard for fellow writers. If you're a writer, and you, for example, never use capital letters in Tweets or blog posts, I will not read any of your work. It's as if you're being a sloppy painter if you do that, and I won't trust your art.
I think it's silly to get all flustered over "your" instead of "you're." Typos happen. People don't know every rule of the English language, and that's okay.
Typos used to annoy me to no end. But then I met and married the love of my life–a man who couldn't spell his way out of a paper bag. So I have become much more forgiving. Although I still raise an eyebrow when he misspells something in a text message. My favorite is his use of "to" for "too." I must always respond: "too! too!"
Honestly, it depends on where it is and how bad the typo is. There have been times when I've been reading a book, come across a typo, and laughed about it with my husband. There have been other times when I've posted a blog post with multiple typos because I was rushing to get it done.
I do try to be understanding, but there are times when the typos are just so stupid that I can't let it go.
I tend to get annoyed, yeah, but only when it's SUPER pervasive and frequent. If I spot one or two typos and a few scattered grammar errors throughout a book, I'm not going to get my nose out of joint. When it's constant sentence structure errors, basic writing mistakes, and clearly not understanding what a semi-colon is for, that gets to me. Mostly because I notice it constantly and it takes me out of the story.
I agree that we all make mistakes and no one's perfect, myself included, so I'm happy to be a little lenient for mistakes. But when I feel like they're not mistakes but a lack of writing knowledge, I get a little miffed because I think, "You know, you're doing this professionally. Maybe you should take a class."
Typos drive me insane because they take me out of what I'm reading. Also, I spend a lot of time marking, copy-editing and proof-reading, so I feel the need to pull out a pen and correct the error.
I don't mind them so much on blogs, though, as long as there aren't too many, and I know there are a fair few on my blog. I figure in a more informal context like a blog, it's important to feel free to type and publish more quickly, so of course a few errors will creep in.
They don't make me too angry, but I do tend to notice them and get transported out of the story. They make me doubt the copyeditor a little bit, though never enough that I've researched who did that particular book or anything. I suppose that PERHAPS if I noticed it was a chronic problem with one publisher, I'd be a little wary of working with them, but it's more likely that I would just be more paranoid about making my manuscript as flawless as possible before turning it in.
I do get annoyed. If there are one or two, I can see how that would happen and I don't judge them on it. But more than two, and I start to wonder… How many people proofread this? Why didn't anyone notice? How much will the author want to strangle me if I email them with page and line numbers of every mistake I found?
As James Scott Bell says in the very first comment, a typo or mistake – even if you know immediately what the line is "meant" to say – takes you out of the story. The reading experience is not as smooth.
I've long felt that people should really hire me to point these things out. But then again, this post probably has a typo and will make me look like a fool. Karma. 🙂
I've worked for a proofreader and copyeditor for over 20 years. Do typos bother me? Not really. Good spelling isn't related to intelligence. You either are or not good at it. What DOES bother me is people who correct bloggers' typos or the typos in people's comments. I hate that…who cares if there's a typo.
Yes, I notice typos and find them distracting to the point where I will stop reading.
Depends on the typo and the context. There are certain kinds of typos that any really speedy typist can tell you are fairly common if you get going too fast in an environment where you feel your message can still be understood (like typing "teh" instead of "the" in a blog comment or on a message board). Then there are typos that do actually make it harder to decipher the meaning of text; bonus points if you find one in a newspaper or other professional setting.
They don't usually make me irate or anything, but they definitely bug sometimes.
Typos in books bug me, but I get over it. I figure the percentage of typos is pretty small in a book.
The ones that make me cringe and/or laugh out loud and take photos of are the ones that are on billboards and/or signs in public places. There are usually only like 4-5 words on these signs, people. You couldn't be bothered to correct 4-5 words? On a monsterously huge sign? Seriously?
It does annoy me, yes, especially when it is something I wrote. I can hear my fourth grade English teacher loud and clear. "That is not the correct way to spell that!"
One or two typos here and there don't bother me that much, at least to the point of distracting me from the story. On the other hand, if typos distracted me that much, the story wasn't happening for me and I would've probably put it down anyway.
Just like in life, I'm the forgiving type. Mistakes never bother me.
I abhor typos! Granted, I can overlook some in a 350-page book but that's about where my tolerance stops, primarily because these works were supposedly professionally edited.
What I hate even worse is when the same typo is made repeatedly. For example: I was reading a book that used the word "voila!" more than once. Fine, except that it appeared as "viola!" each time. Talk about taking you out of the story…
I can be forgiving, but I am just wired to notice them, and they can really take me out of the story. That's what bothers me the most.
If it's a few, no big deal. I'd rather they weren't there, of course, but I understand we're all human. I see them in Big Published Books all the time.
If it's a book about writing or editing — or a blog post trying to be an authority on something along those lines — that's when they become more problematic for me.
Do I think other writers are human?
Good question.
Tipos driv me insan becuz thay can obscure the meaning of a sentence.
Misplaced commas, can be, particularly, annoying, because they make you pause, in the wrong places.
Incorrectly used apostrophes make the reader work to determine the writer's intended meaning: … and it's worn and bumpy (insert line break/page turn) vs. … and its worn and bumpy (line break/page turn) tail straggled behind it.
Oh, typos jump out at me. That fact has possibly gotten me a job with one of the professors at my university.
And, yes, typos annoy the heck out of me. For example, I don't know what an open is, but there's an employee out there who owns one. My mom says that if it weren't usually illegal, I'd be one of those people going around and fixing public signs. She's probably right.
I have aphasia as a secondary condition to multiple sclerosis. I make mistakes all the time. I misspell words, use the wrong homonym, leave words out, etc. I also use words that are similar in spelling to the one that I want with one letter different such that the meaning of the sentence gets turned into nonsense. I do what I can to catch these mistakes before posting, but I almost always miss one or two.
It would be nice if those who abhor typos and feel the need to correct idiots like me could develop a bit of compassion for those of us who struggle to make ourselves understood.
They annoy the poop out of me because one of my day jobs is copy editor. I sometimes feel that I don't give great advice during my writing groups because all I want to do is point out all of the mixed verb tenses and missing oxford commas.
To my mind, a writer has to be on top of his game when it comes to things like typos. When an editor or agent is looking for a reason to say no, why give them fodder?
Typos do not annoy me for two reasons. First, I make them all the time and sometimes I don't catch them for three or four re-reads. When I no longer make typos, I will wait for the world to catch up to my magnificence.
Second, when I see a typo in a book or magazine, it gives me one more opportunity to say to myself, "I can do better than that," and I have one more reason to keep writing.
Yes they annoy me. They annoy me a LOT. More grammar errors than obvious typos, though. The reason is the same one that bad writing annoys me. I buy a book to escape from my life into a story. Every grammatical glitch takes me OUT of the story and back into life.
Yes, because they take me out of the story. I've edited quite a few books and have trained myself to read carefully as I go along, noticing even misplaced commas. If a book is exceptionally good, I’ll let myself be taken out of the story and just get right back in again; and it won’t annoy me if there aren’t so many typos that it becomes difficult to stay in the story or trust that the writer is skilled.
In today’s publishing world of many choices, I expect less typos from a book that costs more than $3 in eBook format and comes from a Big Six publishing house. If I’m dishing out much more than $3 for an eBook because a higher price is supposedly necessary to pay for good Editors, etc., I expect to get high-quality editing for my money. Popular authors like George R. R. Martin have immaculately edited novels – thousands of pages in a series and practically no typos. For that type of quality – sparkling prose that’s well-edited – I’ll happily plunk down the extra money. At this point, I’ve purchased so many self-published novels that are also immaculately edited but cost only 99 cents to $2.99, I know that I can find excellently edited novels from many publishing sources, and I hesitate to pay more money for lesser quality.
Typos DO annoy me a bit. I'm okay with the occasional text talk, like abbreviations. Lol, ttfn, rofl! You know-but when people use improper grammar on Facebook it just…. Ugh, it's so awful!
I especially loathe the confusion between "there" and "their", and "you're" and "your".
It annoys me in books even more. And I know that if my book is ever considered for publishing, I'll need a copyeditor with veins of steel who can jump into my manuscript's jungle of improper wordage and comma use and slay them like Chuck Norris with a rubber-band. I'm awful at grammar and punctuation.
But I think it annoys people like me because it's a BOOK. The actors don't stutter on the final airing of a TV show, singers don't fall off tempo during their song, so why should their be typos in novels? We think, "Aren't copyeditors like… superheros?!"
Sorry, kids, Superman doesn't exist. But copyeditors DO work their butts off.
I actually just blogged about this. (https://kathrynpackerroberts.blogspot.com) Funny. As much as I may gripe from time to time about this, it doesn't normally bother me. It's just when I go through a whole bunch of blog posts and see it over and over that I wonder how many people actually re-read what they've written before posting. I mean, it doesn't take that much of an effort, I think.
But are typos a sin?
Okay, maybe not. =)
Typos annoy the heck out of me! I can't stand to see a really good book either riddled with typos or even just a few.
Why?
Two reasons:
1) If the book is riddled with typos, it makes it seem like no one gave a rat's arse to even edit it. Why bother writing it if you aren't going to fix it? Does anyone even care or was the book just rushed out to make money, damn what the reader thinks…
2) It jerks me away from the important part. The STORY. Glaring typos are like ice on the road, they send you off kilter, pell-mell into the side of the road and you have to pick up steam all over again.
Typos bother me. A lot. This is partly because I'm a copyeditor. Or it might be more true to say, I'm a copyeditor because typos bother me so much. It's kind of like looking at a picture that's hung just slightly crooked. A typo is a tiny piece of the universe out of order, and that bit of chaos could easily have been avoided.
I do try not to publicly correct typos and other errors unless I've been asked to do so, because that's just obnoxious. I prefer to educate people instead (see my daily #grammartip on Twitter).
I am not a copy editor. I can't even pretend to be one. So, like you, I'm not quick to point fingers. But when it mars the meaning of the passage or book or sign etc., it's jarring, yes. I'm not single-handedly out to correct the illiteracy rates in America or to convince everyone who lives here that YES, WE ARE AN ENGLISH-SPEAKING LANGUAGE, DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND BE A CONVENIENCE TO THE REST OF THE WORLD BY LEARNING TO SPEAK THE LIKE THE NATIVES DO, but yeah, if I were or if I knew someone who were, I would be understanding to their plight. It's values like theirs that keep America from collapsing into a sea of illiterate, low-level readers without any common knowledge or memory of good literature gone by.
Of course Tipos annoy me! I hate all Fiat cars! Oh wait…
Typos don't pull me out of a story at all. They may cause a brief hiccup but I get what they're trying to say and can easily move past it. Very few books I've read are perfect and that's okay with me. We're all human.
It depends on the text the typos appear in. If it's an informal blog post, I'll point them out to the author so her or she can fix it.
If it's something I pay to read, it's a sign of improper editing, and thereby a sign that all possible effort was not put into the work. I never want to feel I paid money for even remotely lazy work.
Yes, typos annoy me. It signifies a lack of professionalism, whether on the part of the editor, proofreader, or whoever's in charge. It makes me feel the book or article was rushed, which means the producers cared more about making money or hitting a deadline than creating quality work.
I don't mind one or two in a book, but after that I lose patience. And typos are better than actual errors, such as when I go to the grocery and the sign over the aisle says "Can Fruit." I don't consider that a typo; the person who made that sign meant for it to say Can Fruit. I consider it a sign of the decay of Western Civilization.
Nope. I'm with Sean Fisher…brief *hic…hic…hiccup" Unless the story is riddled with failures.
They do. I can understand that mistakes happen, and I make them all the time myself. I can also understand that even if there is a typo or two in a book, that's just one offending word out of thousands.
But it is, as a few have said before, a "bump" just large enough to remove me from the immersion, to bring my head above water and disrupt the flow. I can admit that no one is perfect and therefore mistakes are inevitable, but they still get under my skin from time to time.
I'm such a perfectionist when it comes to typos.
I can barely tolerate my own typos, be it writing stories (granted, you have lots of time to get it right), or blogging (where you really have only one shot to get it right). But to see them in other people's writing, especially those that were self-pubbed, is just inexcusable.
It usually kills whatever momentum or enjoyment I have of a story dead in its tracks.
James Joyce asked himself that question, just before he sat down to write "Ulysses".
So he came up with a trail-blazing solution.
"I'll fill this book with so many typos" he said to himself, "that graduate students a hundred years from now will still be trying to figure out whether each word is actually a pun in three languages — English, Celtic and ancient Akkadian."
yep
I used to be disgusted but now I'm just amused. 🙂
There's a lot of things that bothered me when I was naive and arrogant enough to sit on my high horse and go "Ha! I wouldn't do that/allow that/say that/be that/not do that, etc . . . "
But when you are in the midst of it all yourself, then another tune comes whistling out between your puckered lips 😀
So no, typos don't bother me – any more. 😀
PS – and that comment of course wasn't directed to anyone's comments her e- I haven't even read them yet! "you and your" means of course "Mine and my" 😀 …
okay – phew – needed to clarify that!
There is no excuse for a typo in a published book, at least that's my opinion. When I'm reading a novel and come across a typo, I become completely removed from the story and consumed with wanting to know how that could happen.
Typos don't so much as annoy me as distract me from the flow of the story. Having said that, I also tend to feel clever for spotting one. 🙂 But seriously, if a book was professionally published, with all the time, effort and money spent on layouts, cover designs, etc., you'd think they'd invest in a good copyeditor to weed out those pesky typos. After all, it's all about presentation: typos = sloppy.
Typos of the variety of "Do" when it should have been "To" or "This" when it should have been "His" bug the hell out of me. those are the speed bumps. The average garden varity of "expereince" or "freind" not so much. I have noticed a lot of the "this" "his" type in eBooks, but then again, I get sent a lot of ebooks and probably read more eBooks than print books anymore.
Splitinfitev's?! I know how to do those too!
Yes I find them very distracting especially when they are mine.
I notice them. I'm guilty of committing them. In books they make me wonder how much I'm supposed to know before I submit my manuscript.
A friend of mine who has published seven novels told me once that he doesn't worry about "that stuff." And still I'm left with the question, how much grammar, for example, are writers supposed to know? How much work do you give a copy editor?
For the record, I try to submit as clean a copy as possible, erring on the safe side. Still, I'm very curious if someone like you, Nathan, admits to not knowing "a dangling modifier from a split infinitive." Are editors/agents that forgiving?
Great topic. Thanks for posting!
Typos are annoying but forgivable in casual writing, but in professional writing they are a sign of laziness and disrespect for the reader. It is rare that I pick up any published work lately and don't find multiple, glaring, and distracting typos, and I admit it angers me. I think it is evidence that writers and editors don't take pride in their work.
On blogs and in comments sections, when I see many typos and misspellings, I tend to discount that writer's ideas.
I think that all writing deserves at least a casual backwards glance in an attempt to prevent typos; more formal writing deserves multiple glances. In a printed book, a missing word, for example, takes me slightly out of the story, but I'll attribute it to the publisher and one incident won't particularly bother me. Incorrect punctuation turns me off the whole thing entirely–it reflects on the author, alerting me to a likely lack of attention to language in their writing style. I would certainly put a book down if I noticed grammar and punctuation issues within the first chunk of pages.