There's something a little odd about a publication celebrating its own incompetence, but Elisabeth Ribbans' article on the Guardian's long and illustrious history of typos raised many a smirk (and a few winces) from this professional copy-editor/proofreader.
In many cases, the amusement lies in the error itself, but the phrasing of the subsequent correction is also often equally notable. There is a particularly delicious irony in the misspelling of "misspelled" not once but twice in the corrections column itself, and in the fact that the column was once entirely omitted - "due to a technical hitch rather than any sudden onset of accuracy", admitted Reader's Editor Ian Mayes, with the customary blend of sheepishness and wry wit.
"As long as humans and speed are involved in producing journalism, errors will arise", says Ribbans. Very true - I'm more inclined to cite the advent of the internet and the 24-hour news cycle culture to explain why mistakes seem all the more common, rather than embark on a Daily Mail reader's things-were-better-in-my-day grumble about declining standards.
Anyway, I'm off to form a band called Frightened Rabbi - who's in?
(Thanks to Tudor for the link.)
No comments:
Post a Comment