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Heffalump traps
by loiswakeman @ 03 May. 2007 - 11:55:21

I did a double-take opening a courier envelope today: on the flap, it says:

TEAR ALONG PERFORATATED EDGE PACKING SLIP ENCLOSED

- I wonder if the person who made the artwork wept when (if) they realised they now had 500,000 envelopes with a typo?

I can speak from personal experience that it's much easier to see others' mistakes. More than once when I worked for ICL, I'd get my finished manuals back from the printer, and after flipping through a few pages, spot a typo that was previously invisible during my painstaking proofing of the galleys!

Of course, in these days of electronic publishing, this isn't so common, but back in the 70s and 80s, we really did cut and paste with scissors and glue, and once committed to print, things stayed that way till all the copies were used up.

Funnily enough, I spotted another stray 'at' in the Telegraph money section, where someone was said to be 'flirtating' with an idea. English spelling is full of such heffalump traps: 'rotation' and 'rotating' is OK, but 'flirtation' and 'flirtating' is not. (If you go to the root verbs - rotate and flirt - you can see why of course, but I doubt the average journo worries too much about etymology when rushing to get copy finished. But don't they use spellcheckers?)

Which reminds me of Terry Pratchett's character Nanny Ogg, who 'knew how to start spelling "banana," but didn't know how you stopped' - hence her assertion that Bananana dakry is basicly Rum with a banananana in it.

4 comments | Permalink | Recommend this post
Tags: english, etymology, exclude dictionary, proofreading, spellchecker, typo,

Comments: Hide subcomments

bloglikesitbloglikesit [Member]
03/05/07 @ 12:19

I always put too many it's in repetition. Repetitition. I have learned to double triple check that word now. Sorta makes sense though, given the definition. Or is that definitition?

:))

And a computer's spellcheck is all well and good as long as the mistake isn't a real word...

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loiswakemanloiswakeman [Member]
http://lois.co.uk
03/05/07 @ 14:11

Ah well - if you have MS Word, what you need is an exclude dictionary. Here is a short article I wrote for my trade journal a while ago:

"A god in the manager"

If you don't know about the Microsoft Word (TM) exclude dictionary, it's a real help in proof-reading. Properly-spelt words in this file will be picked up as possible mis-spellings: so no more embarrassing mistakes like "If you cannot log into the system, please contact your manger" or "Do not sue the appliance in wet conditions".

Of course, this is no substitute for proper proof reading, but it does make it easier to spot typos you often make.

I have made it very easy to add words to my exclude dictionary as follows. I added a shortcut to the Windows Start menu to open the file in Notepad, so whenever I notice that I have typed a real word that wasn't what I meant ('form' and 'from' are typical), I open the file and add it, one word per line. If a word can be used at the start of a sentence, add both capitalised and lower case versions (form, Form).

Next time Word is loaded, my additions will be picked up as possible typos.

How to do this.

1. In Windows Explorer, use the Tools > Folder Options > View dialogue to make sure you can show hidden files.

2. Next use the Tools > Folder Options > File Types dialogue to create a new type for extension EXC. Locate Notepad as the application to use (it's usually already in the list) and save the change.

3. Find the exclude dictionary: in a typical Office XP English installation, it is C:\Documents and Settings\yourUserNameHere\Application Data\Microsoft\Proof\mssp3en.exc, and create a shortcut to it.

4. Drag the shortcut into the folder you want - could be in the start menu, desktop, Office bar or another task bar. Et voilà! Double click on the shortcut and the dictionary opens for editing.

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LissaTLissaT pro
12/05/07 @ 12:09

That's useful to know. I think my brain must talk quite sloppily because when I'm typing at speed my fingers quite often seem to hear it dictating 'a' for 'I', 'have', 'had', 'and' and several other words. Could I feed 'a' on its own into Exclude without its picking up every letter a in the middle of a word?

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loiswakemanloiswakeman [Member]
http://lois.co.uk
14/05/07 @ 09:28

I am not sure Lissa: the exclusion works on a whole word basis - so any "a" on its own should be recognised: but there is another setting in Word that specifies what short words (by default 1 and 2 characters) should be ignored.

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