Apparently some of the first copies of J.K. Rowling’s book The Philosopher’s Stone has a rare typo in it, and could stand to collect over to £20,000 among collectors.
My typos are not currently worth as much. If they were, I’d be minted by now and giving J.K. Rowling a serious run for her money. Better still I’d be able to stop whining about the eternal saving for a new bathroom, as a week of blog posts with typos and I could probably afford a brand new house with several bathrooms.
Before I publish the blog I always spell check it and make necessary changes, but something nearly always slips through the net. Those of you who subscribe to have the blog delivered to your email probably get it before I’ve noticed and amended it. (sorry!) Often it’s when there are two, (to, too) or three different ways to spell a word all having different meanings. The spell check doesn’t pick it up and neither do I. For example the other night I published the blog and several hours later I went to bed. As I was drifting off to sleep I suddenly thought ‘I’m sure I referred to my mother’s bowel cancer as bowl not bowel’ I wanted to correct it before The Mothership’s beady eye picked it up and messaged me. Other friends have found a few too: and once I was reading something at work along with my cheeky colleague. It had interesting grammar and spelling and he turned to me and said ‘it’s a bit like reading your blog’ He runs the @OrkneyLibrary Twitter account and has given me much ribbing over the years, and once again his quick jibing made me laugh out loud. Also at long last my friend Katy Maltloaf has finally drummed into me how to tell the difference between stationary/stationery. E for envelope of course! It’s only taken her over 20 years friendship and patience.
Anyway, back to the bowel cancer typo. Orkney Beef was fast asleep next to me and I had the dilemma of correcting the typo before The Mothership saw it and without waking Orkney Beef up. So in stealth mode I reached out and grabbed my phone, pulled it under the duvet, found the edit button, whispered ‘hurry up!’ as the slow internet wheel of doom circled round; and finally changed my mother’s bowl to bowel. (Ironically, since she’s had so much of her colon removed she only has a semi colon now.)
I’m a bit of a grammar/spelling pedant in certain circles myself. I once saw a joke which can only be used written down.
Q How do you comfort a grammar pedant?
A There, Their, They’re
It really made me laugh.
I also get a bit stressy over Your and You’re too. But to be honest judge not lest you be judged and I’ve no place to be pointing out the spelling and grammar errors of other people, as I’ve enough of my own to be dealing with.
Thank you for being patient with me, and keep prof reading. 😉
The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
Theodore Roosevelt
Norq From Ork 