August 1, 2007Typo of the DaySometimes they just jump out at you: I lay down my fife for the sheep. At first I wondered, Do sheep not enjoy fife music? But then I noted the attribution given to Jesus, as recorded in John 10:15, and I realized that fife should read life. I attribute this typo not to the author or the editor (Whew!) but to the scanner, which interpreted the l in life as an f. That happens a fot; a smudge on the page causes a scanner no end of confusion. Other fetters--even numbers and speciaf characters, get affected as weff; a capitaf I is read as a 1, the 1 is read as a fower-case l, and the l is read as an f. You'd think a scanner woufd efiminate error, but the editor can't rest on his or her faurefs; we need to keep our eyes constantly peefed for the inevitabfe sfip. I guess this time we just got lucky. Posted by Dave Zimmerman
at August 1, 2007 8:08 AM
faurefs - A word in scrabble that is made up to beat an editor that you're playing with. Comment by: Pete at August 1, 2007 10:05 AMMost amufing. Comment by: L.L. Barkat at August 7, 2007 9:35 AMEek. That's the main reason we gave up on OCR years ago. Humans make much more predictable mistakes. Comment by: Andy Kerr at August 15, 2007 5:47 PMComments are closed for this entry. |
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