Proofreading Gotchas

[MrPixel]

Last night I had a forehead-slap moment re-reading a story submitted earlier yesterday - a seemingly minor bit of dialog began with "I'll" when it should have been "It'll". Oops. Fortunately the story hadn't made it through the approval queue yet, so the quick repair was made and I took my lumps, reluctantly shuffling to the back of the line in the resubmitting.

"I'll" vs. "It'll" is something I've tripped over before. It's usually at the beginning of a line, both are spelled correctly, they're tall, skinny characters so the words themselves don't draw your eye, and in a new line of dialog they're slightly camouflaged by the leading quote plus the apostrophe. All this conspires to make them words your eyes skip over and your brain "fixes" them for you on the 15th or 16th proofread.

Anybody else have a vexing bit of typographical error like that that kicks you in the butt more often than you'd like?

 

[Bazzle]

Autococonuts changes I'll to ill for me

 

[SyleusSnow]

Oh, plenty. And that's exactly the type of error that spell check misses but sticks out when using text-to-speech to proof-listen a story.

 

[StillStunned]

Public/pubic for me. It used to be something I only had to worry about in my professional editing, but now that I write erotica I have to be careful not to write "public hair".

 

[MrPixel]

Public/pubic for me. It used to be something I only had to worry about in my professional editing, but now that I write erotica I have to be careful not to write "public hair".

I've told the story here before. My wife worked for a PBS station many years ago, and one of her co-workers was tasked with running the Vidifont for live presentations. This was a system that put text overlays on the screen in real time. One live special was the Miss Georgia pageant. The operator fumble-fingered the opening caption with something to the effect of "Miss Georgia Pageant brought to you by Georgia Pubic Television," with the overlay on top of the swimsuit competition segment already in progress.

Was it Freud at work? Leroy was reassigned.

 

[Erozetta]

Less instead of let's.

There were two of us reading and writing the goddamn thing and we both missed it!

 

[SimonDoom]

Public/pubic for me. It used to be something I only had to worry about in my professional editing, but now that I write erotica I have to be careful not to write "public hair".

All those fond memories of pubic school. The teachers. The show and tell.

And, of course, the Pubic Library.

 

[AllenWoody]

I don't know that it's any one recurring thing, but there's always *something* that creeps in despite multiple readings. Usually my editor catches them, but not always.

 

[StillStunned]

All those fond memories of pubic school. The teachers. The show and tell.

And, of course, the Pubic Library.

I've caught "pubic arena", "pubic broadcaster" and "pubic service" in my final proofing round for clients. Thank all the gods for Read Aloud.

 

[yowser]

Public/pubic for me. It used to be something I only had to worry about in my professional editing, but now that I write erotica I have to be careful not to write "public hair".

In real life I always like it better when it's 'public hair.'

 

[intim8]

Anybody else have a vexing bit of typographical error like that that kicks you in the butt more often than you'd like?

I mess up "its" and "it's" a lot. Not because I don't know them, but because my fingers don't know them. And the brain I use when reading my story back is not the same brain that knows that difference. There's others like that.

A couple of proofreading/editing tips. First, change the margins. It's amazing how your brain just sees paragraphs and sentences whole instead of as parts when they have all the line breaks in the same place you've seen over and over again.

Second, read your story backwards, paragraph-wise. Your brain knows the flow of the story, and glosses over a lot of stuff when reading it again and again.

 

[SimonDoom]

My cross to bear is "waist/waste," the switcheroo of which, as one can easily imagine, produces regrettable results, and has in several of my stories.

 

[AG31]

With age comes mixing up they're/there/their to/too/two and all those other homonyms that I can't remember now. It's not that I don't know the correct usage, and I used to be unforgiving of people who used them incorrectly. But it just keeps happening!!! But I think I do catch them when proof reading.... Or maybe not...

 

[AG31]

Not because I don't know them, but because my fingers don't know them.

Well stated.

 

[lovecraft68]

Coke and cock. snorting cock, chugging cock, sipping cock sucking coke a big thick coke....

 

[TheLobster]

snorting cock, chugging cock, sipping cock

I'll keep those in mind for when I need a character with a really unique oral technique.

 

[StillStunned]

I'll keep those in mind for when I need a character with a really unique oral technique.

While I was writing one of my stories, Word wanted me to change "cock" to "clock". Open wide, babe!

 

[Bamagan]

While I was writing one of my stories, Word wanted me to change "cock" to "clock". Open wide, babe!

If the pendulum is long enough, sometimes that one gets grandfathered in.

 

[TheLobster]

While I was writing one of my stories, Word wanted me to change "cock" to "clock". Open wide, babe!

 

[alohadave]

Public/pubic for me. It used to be something I only had to worry about in my professional editing, but now that I write erotica I have to be careful not to write "public hair".

 

[Rob_Royale]

Anybody else have a vexing bit of typographical error like that that kicks you in the butt more often than you'd like?

Yeah, the end quote that seems to be missing at least once in every story. And your in place of you're. My audio read through misses that every time.

 

[Comshaw]

Not because I don't know them, but because my fingers don't know them. And the brain I use when reading my story back is not the same brain that knows that difference. There's others like that.

Second, read your story backwards, paragraph-wise. Your brain knows the flow of the story, and glosses over a lot of stuff when reading it again and again.

Having sausage fingers my fingers are always at least 3-4 words behind where my mind is. Sometimes I have to stop and puzzle out what the hell word I typed.

I learned the backward reading trick a long time ago to check my horrendous spelling. It doesn't seem to help with transcribed words though.

And that brings me to my stumbling block from and form. I think it goes back to the first thing said, my mind is way ahead of my fingers. I have no explanation why I do it regularly though.

Comshaw

 

[Bramblethorn]

I see people mixing up "martial" and "marital" a lot.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I see people mixing up "martial" and "marital" a lot.

Considering how marital can become rather martial at times, it's an understandable faux pas.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

For some reason, whenever I type fast "ever" becomes "every".

-Annie