Typos: Who Cares?

[mrscoach]

Some types bother me. I don't usually blame the author because it's the publisher who transposed letters or dropped a letter. It's the homophones that get me. Or confusing a noun and a verb. The lineman dominated the field because he was a dominant player. A person is NOT a dominate.
A character changing names mid scene is also a turn off. "Wait, there's only two people in the car. Who is 'X'?" Only to reread several times to realize they just called the other person the wrong name, to no reaction from said person. I've been called the wrong name before, I definitely brought it up. It was obvious when I figured it out that the character changed names during writing and the find/replace didn't find all instances.

[Richwood]

I have been a volunteer proofreader for a couple of authors so I know how difficult it can be. SOMETHING always seems to sneak through even multiple proofreaders but the errors still bug me when I am reading and spot them. A few per book are fine but I remember books from one technical book publisher (Tab Books) from years ago which were typographical disasters with frequent spelling errors as well as missing and dropped words in sentences. Obviously unedited as well as incompetently typeset.

I find missing words in a sentence or misuse of homonyms to be most annoying. Due to use of spelling checkers simple misspellings are less common than in the past except with poorly edited scanned to digital ebooks.

[DuskyRose]

I really find typos annoying. Yes, they sometimes get through, but they really shouldn't. I'm a visual reader, so 'see' the action in my head when I'm reading. I don't really see the words unless there's a problem. Some small typos I can skim, they're road bumps. Others make me stop, reread, adjust the video in my head, and move on. They're throwing me out, and those are worse.

I think some new authors aren't paying for any editing, depending on family and friends who don't have professional skills. And it shows. And I think some of those authors do go back and make corrections. I've seen a lot of book updates from Amazon on my purchases over the last year or so.

I would return a lot more published books with a large number of typos if I could get to reading them within the return time limit. One I just tried to read a few weeks ago I'd saved up, as it sounded great, only to have it throw me out with typos, bad formatting, and every 50th or so quotation mark missing. Too late to return, by a long shot, and no update. So I have no hope that it's been corrected. Bummer.

[j.p.s]

Off topic, but I just have to vent. I just heard a reporter on the PBS news hour use the phrase "irregardless of zip code".

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Off topic, but I just have to vent. I just heard a reporter on the PBS news hour use the phrase "irregardless of zip code".

Yeah, everyone knows it should be 'ZIP code'.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Off topic, but I just have to vent. I just heard a reporter on the PBS news hour use the phrase "irregardless of zip code".

"Irregardless" is accepted as nonstandard idiomatic English by the dictionaries and a barbaric word by the pundits. But the bottom line is that it is common in American English and so acceptable to descriptivists and objectionable to prescriptivists.

[crich70]

I think if a book is riddled with typos that it not only becomes very hard to read but it also jars me out of the story. And of course if the author has that many typos I also have to wonder what else might be wrong with the story. I mean granted Isaac Asimov was said to be able to write one draft and have his text almost if not completely perfect, but how many of us are like Dr. Asimov?

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Richwood

I have been a volunteer proofreader for a couple of authors so I know how difficult it can be. SOMETHING always seems to sneak through even multiple proofreaders but the errors still bug me when I am reading and spot them. A few per book are fine but I remember books from one technical book publisher (Tab Books) from years ago which were typographical disasters with frequent spelling errors as well as missing and dropped words in sentences. Obviously unedited as well as incompetently typeset.

I find missing words in a sentence or misuse of homonyms to be most annoying. Due to use of spelling checkers simple misspellings are less common than in the past except with poorly edited scanned to digital ebooks.

Ah but even a good spell checking program won't pick up everything. I mean if someone uses "there" when they should have used "their" or "they're" for example or "Your" when they meant "you're" etc. Those kind of errors get me.

[Frenzie]

Originally Posted by crich70

Ah but even a good spell checking program won't pick up everything. I mean if someone uses "there" when they should have used "their" or "they're" for example or "Your" when they meant "you're" etc. Those kind of errors get me.

Suspected there/they're and your/you're slip-ups are marked as a "possible word choice error" in Word. That Grammarly thing that's always advertised on YouTube says "the word there doesn't seem to fit the context."

Your overall point is of course still valid, since only fairly superficial spelling, grammar, and stylistic issues will be recognized or at least pointed out.[1] But that example might not be the best.

[1] Because otherwise you'd get too much noise from false positives.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by rhadin

"Irregardless" is accepted as nonstandard idiomatic English by the dictionaries and a barbaric word by the pundits. But the bottom line is that it is common in American English and so acceptable to descriptivists and objectionable to prescriptivists.

Despite my goofy answer, if I heard a reporter use irregardless on PBS of all places, I'd probably complain too.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by crich70

I mean granted Isaac Asimov was said to be able to write one draft and have his text almost if not completely perfect, but how many of us are like Dr. Asimov?

It's easier when you aren't worried about things like fully realized characters

Just kidding, I do love Isaac Asimov.

[Quoth]

Enid Blyton only used notes for the School series. Never planned. At least not on paper.
Still most of us are more normal people.

Blyton and Asimov just used a portable typewriter. I have one. I'd hate to write a page. Also I might have 10 to 30 revisions. I adopted computer screen editing in 1981. I edited programs in the 1970s by hand punching replacement cards.
Spelling and Grammar checkers (on CP/M and then MS DOS) from just after the mid 1980s. It's part of why I regard EVERYTHING in the press about AI as mere PR. The Spelling and Grammar checkers have not progressed much, frankly they are rubbish compared to an expert proof reader. Google Translate is brute force and a giant "Rosetta stone".
Also I trained to be a programmer originally due to the idea of AI in SF, not realising it's mostly a macguffin. I suspect there is less real AI research now than when I did the last course in the mid 1980s on it.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Off topic, but I just have to vent. I just heard a reporter on the PBS news hour use the phrase "irregardless of zip code".

From what I see, irregardless is up there with using impact instead of effect/affect, alternate instead of alternative, etc.; we're stuck with it.

[Quoth]

The Asimov "Three Laws" are nothing to do with AI. Purely a mechanism to set up SF themed Detective stories. He later wrote actual Detective short stories. The "Robots" are more like Androids (Though so are the originals in RUR, the play that invented the term) and the computers in the stories then are gigantic machines.

IMO a mistake when he was persuaded to go back to SF writing to write more Foundation books and combine them with the "Robot" books. Caves of Steel is a classic full length SF detective story originally nothing to do with the Foundation Trilogy.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by hobnail

From what I see, irregardless is up there with using impact instead of effect/affect, alternate instead of alternative, etc.; we're stuck with it.

They didn't say "could care less" instead of "couldn't care less"? That always baffles me.

I have accidentally used "lightening" instead of "lightning", he / her / here, inforce / enforce and nosey / nosy. I type fast.
I've now discovered how to edit the built in standard dictionary and removed inforce and nosey as well as few other things never or very rare in British English. It has a US Dictionary too.

I practice now by deliberately annotating PD texts off Gutenberg. Often the Kobo dictionary hasn't an older but valid word. It also seems too American.
Some modern printed books do have more typos.