Jul 23, 2018 4 min read

Eye half to wander if wee right butt don’t proofread.

If you think there’s something wrong with the sentence above – and I hope to Calliope, the ancient Greek muse of epic poetry, that you do – we’re on the same page.

That first sentence is an example of something a spell-checker or context-checker would find perfectly acceptable. Why? Because every word was spelled correctly, even though some, in context, were not correct.

Allow me to quote that noted grammarian, Myron Cope: “Yoi!”

What set me off on this was an email from a friend that included what she called “a wonderful misspelling” (capitalized below) in an online real estate ad.

“The kitchen opens to a large wood deck … with built-in benches [from which] you can enjoy the … gardens with PERIANAL plantings and mature trees.”

Google it.

I understand mistakes happen. I make typos. Sometimes, Microsoft Word finds them; sometimes, I do. Sometimes, I do not. But an editor or proofreader usually does. That’s their job. But I’m driven to the brink of madness when I see a typo or incorrect grammatical structure in a major work, one which supposedly has gone through several rounds of editing. For example, in a new biography of Thomas Jefferson, I found a sentence with a missing word not 30 pages into the book. I’ve run out of fingers and toes to count the number of times this has happened in the dozen or so best-selling books I’ve read in the past six months. Missing words; words used incorrectly; punctuation placed so haphazardly I have to wonder if there’s a recent stylebook I haven’t read that says, “To sweeten manuscript, take a half-cup of commas and sprinkle liberally throughout.”

That’s why I wonder if we write but don’t proofread.

Sure we do. We don’t have the time or the manpower.

Thirty years ago, not long after I started as a newspaper reporter, a dictum came down from the news editor that we must not submit our copy to night editors unless we had run spellcheck. Production deadlines were tight, staffing was tighter and no one could guarantee the night-desk editors – the last line of defense between readers and the rampaging Malaprop Monster – would have time to read every story. Conditions have become worse.

I must say, however, writers, editors, proofreaders and copy editors in newspapers, magazines, books and online publications by and large do an excellent job of producing error-free products, especially in light of the quadrillion or so words that must spew forth into print on any given day. I like to think this happens not only because they have been well trained, but also because they take pride in their work.

And I hope that in doing so, they avoid the pitfalls of relying on spellchecking software, which no doubt enabled the real estate ad faux pas cited earlier.

Another, somewhat more amusing example of an editor taking a shortcut occurred in an Associated Press story some 30 years ago, when someone used global search and replace to change “black” to “African American” – a term then was being used widely for the first time. The infamous “African-American sedan” being driven in the resulting story is etched forever in my memory.

Nobody’s perfect. But I think we could be closer to perfection in the written word if the rules of grammar were more effectively taught and enforced at all levels of education. I have seen the work of recent high school and college graduates that could not pass muster in an elementary school essay contest a few decades ago. And it’s pervasive: In February, during Black History Month, an unknown person at the U.S. Department of Education misspelled the name of black scholar W.E.B. Du Bois on Twitter. Called to account, the department then tweeted the misspelling had been corrected, and offered “our deepest apologizes.”

The Malaprop Monster lurks. Grab an example of the printed word and see for yourself.

It’s right there in African American and Caucasian.