Here are some random definitions of a typo ~
1. A mistake in printed matter resulting from mechanical failures of some kind.
2. Part of a statement that is not correct.
3. An error (as of spelling) in typed or typeset material
Or, my favorite definition of all ~
4. S*** that makes me laugh. At the expense of others.
I am one of those fairly anal people who will re-read an email I've written over and over just to make sure I haven't said something completely stupid. Or even with this blog, I will post and re-post until I feel like there are no strange word combinations. So, in fairness, maybe that's why it makes me cringe so much when someone else zips out an email full of fault. And, also in fairness, why that cringing is generally followed up by hysterical, ongoing laughter.
One such email just arrived in my box - full of excellent tid-bits, such as, 'Then aging nothing is full proof.'
A co-worker of mine and I keep whispering this back and forth to each other as if we've discovered the secret meaning of life. Yes...aging nothing...full proof...
If I were nicer I'd tell you what the sentence was supposed to say - but this is more fun, right?
One of my favorite typo explanations was someone realizing (too late) how close the 't' was to the 'g' on her keyboard. After sending a company-wide email that should have closed with 'Regards,"And now, if my father ever reads this blog....he is wondering if I will include my *ahem* best typo career move. So, yes...I will. Just to prove that I know I'm not perfect.
When I graduated from college, I took a job at the Daily Local Newspaper writing classified ads. It was a glorious career - I thought I was loaded at $18k per year and had things that I actually did appearing in the paper each day.
One of my responsibilities was to take down the obits. The funeral homes would call in and we'd sit for nearly an hour while they recited what each obit should include. These were the days prior to email or websites - nowadays, they probably just fax in the body or something.
So, after a few weeks on the job, one of the funeral directors calls. I pick up the phone, "Classifieds, this is Jyl." He says, "Yes, I was wondering...is there a new person working there?"
Knowing immediately he was talking about me I answer, "Well, what do you mean?"
And he says..."Well, all of my obits are printing wrong - they say 'Massive Christian Burial'...and it's actually a Mass of Christian Burial."
Awesome. Needless to say my career as an obit writer was short lived.
In most cases, I do think typos are funny. What makes them funny is the completely unintentional flaw. I once worked with a gal in radio who, when typing in the length for a commercial, went crazy on her zero key. The ad was 10 seconds long and she must have took a nap on her keyboard or something because when it came into the queue it showed up as 10,000 seconds.
What I don't understand is flat out lazy email writing - emails that exclude basic punctuation and include incorrectly spelled words. It doesn't really take that much time to scan an email quickly before sending it out to the world, right?
There have been plenty of panicked moments where I've hit 'send' on an email - only to immediately rush to the Sent Box, find the email, open the email, go to Actions, and recalled the message...because for some reason it wasn't until I hit the 'Send' button that I noticed something glaring.
They are like mini-wake-up calls.
Then aging, nothing is full proof.
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