Just Jennifer

Just My Typo: From “Sinning with the Choir” to “The Untied States” compiled by Drummond Moir (Three Rivers Press)

My life is rife with typos and as is the case with most people, I can easily spot others’ typos while missing my own egregious mistakes.  Most recently, a famous typo came up while preparing for a weekly Internet radio show I co-host http://hunterdonchamberradio.com/library.htm We often do a “today in history” and back in June, something caught my eye.  In the second (1934) edition of Merriam’s New International Dictionary, the word DORD got through, defined as “Density”.  Someone caught it five years later and began to investigate.  What had happened was, and editor ran together the phrase “D or d, cont./density” creating this new word.   But, and here’s the part I found interesting, Dord is actually a word: it is a bronze horn from Ireland dating back as far as 1000 BCE.  Huh.

Drummond Moir, who started his career as a proofreader in London, catching a missing “r” in the word “opprobrium”, has compiled a collection of typos, public and not so public, humorous and embarrassing, and put then on display for the world (or at least word geeks) to see.  Separated by type and source, the typos rage from “From his left ear to the corner of his mouth ran a long scar, the result of a duet many years before.  Flight from Germany, William le Queux” to “Arthur---was serious burned Saturday afternoon when he came into contact with a high voltage wife.  Albuquerque paper” and includes favorite typos of famous authors and editors (not necessarily their own).  The chapter featuring typos from children is less endearing as the words are often more likely to be malapropisms rather than typos.  A fun book to pick up and flip through at random with an invitation at the end to e-mail the editor with other humorous typos to be included future editions.  FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.