What are your worst "typo" errors?

[Kay Inglis]

I never learned to touch-type, so my method is more of an enthusiastic finger-dash for where I thought a particular key was last time I looked.

Spell-checker patiently follows me and automatically corrects some of my more egregious mistakes - at least, when it can tell what the word I was aiming at probably was.

But today I managed "hehiubd". It took me a while before I worked out that the word was meant to be "behind".

It's easy to spot a mistake that gets flagged up in red. But some words slip by.

My fingers always type "from" as "form" - probably because my right hand is stronger and I simply reach the "o" before the "r" every time.

This is an error that is hard to spot, because I will read "from" even when I have typed "form".

My solution is to auto-search "form" and check each use.

What is the worst typo you have managed?

[Robin]

Not in my fiction, but a typo from my Uni days: orgasm instead of organism 

I tend to leave out words in my writing rather than misspell them so I have to proof-read very carefully!

[Lysmata Debelius]

The worst one I've seen was in a published book, it was an OCR error that turned "arms" into "arse". The sentence was (or should have been) "He threw his arms around her neck. "

 

I think the book was Barbara Hambly's "Bride of the Rat God" which is one of my favourite books.

[Robin]

The worst one I've seen was in a published book, it was an OCR error that turned "arms" into "arse". The sentence was (or should have been) "He threw his arms around her neck. "

 

I think the book was Barbara Hambly's "Bride of the Rat God" which is one of my favourite books.

 

[spin52]

My favorite is not one I did, but a college roommate turned 'evil spirits' into 'evil spitirs'. Gotta look out for those.

[PaulJWhite]

My fingers always type "from" as "form" - probably because my right hand is stronger and I simply reach the "o" before the "r" every time.

This is an error that is hard to spot, because I will read "from" even when I have typed "form".

My solution is to auto-search "form" and check each use.

I do the EXACT same typo! And had to do the exact same solution you mention here!

[Wonder]

My fingers sometimes type out "a fresh shart" instead of "a fresh start."

I suspect my subconscious is trolling me for LOLz. 

[Robin]

My fingers sometimes type out "a fresh shart" instead of "a fresh start."

I suspect my subconscious is trolling me for LOLz. 

Oh dear. 

[plennox]

These typo stories are fantastic 

I type lots of ridiculous things during the rough draft, but the worst - because it was published - was "sneak peak" in the TOCs of 5 books. Yep: I made, and missed, that same mistake five times.  And they were there for months until I noticed...last week.

Hopefully one of those things no one but me noticed; even editors didn't spot it.  This thread definitely makes me feel better about it! 

[dgcasey]

My worst typos seem to show themselves when I am listening to one of my novels during the audio stage of editing. That's when I find out I've left out some little word like "the" or "to" or something like that. Why I don't notice those when I'm doing a visual edit is beyond me, but I sure do hear it when I'm listening.

[kenosha]

I had a character cover her legs with an Afghan. Until my editor pointed out that would be a person.

[David VanDyke]

My characters occasionally sh*t on their seats.

Shift! Shift on their seats!

My most common one is leaving the T off "thought." Hard to catch.

[Jeff Tanyard]

I also do the from/form thing all the time.  I have to watch those carefully.

[Gerri Attrick]

I’m no touch typist either. Some time ago I switched from a Qwerty to a Dvorak keyboard layout (best thing I ever did). It took some time to get used to it, especially when I noticed that the L key on the Qwerty had become the N key on Dvorak.

The amount of times I had to change “walk” and its conjugations surprised me. 
Dammit! He walked along the riverbank. Walked not...

[Michelle Louring]

I’m no touch typist either. Some time ago I switched from a Qwerty to a Dvorak keyboard layout (best thing I ever did). It took some time to get used to it, especially when I noticed that the L key on the Qwerty had become the N key on Dvorak.

The amount of times I had to change “walk” and its conjugations surprised me. 
Dammit! He walked along the riverbank. Walked not...

 
I hope you didn't use that keyboard for emails in the beginning!

[Doglover]

Not in my fiction, but a typo from my Uni days: orgasm instead of organism 

I'm sure Freud would have something to say about that.

One of my favourite books of mine, I have read several times. But it was only on this last reading that I noticed my heroine 'road' away on her horse! I recently read a non-fiction by Antonia Fraser which told me that Henry VIII was left with no 'mail' heir.

[Kay Inglis]

My worst typos seem to show themselves when I am listening to one of my novels during the audio stage of editing. That's when I find out I've left out some little word like "the" or "to" or something like that. Why I don't notice those when I'm doing a visual edit is beyond me, but I sure do hear it when I'm listening.

How do you set up the audio stage of editing?

A fellow author sends me their final draft as a .mobi and I listen to that on my Kindle Fire to spot errors.

An audio stage of editing is a very good idea.

How many authors do this?

[Kay Inglis]

I’m no touch typist either. Some time ago I switched from a Qwerty to a Dvorak keyboard layout (best thing I ever did). It took some time to get used to it, especially when I noticed that the L key on the Qwerty had become the N key on Dvorak.

It does seem odd that we stick religiously to the Qwerty keyboard.

Apparently it was developed in the 1870s to take account of the mechanics of the keyboard and the fact that keys jammed, so it was a good idea to set frequently used keys apart.

And yet even my iPhone keyboard is set out in a Qwerty format!

I will look into the Dvorak keyboard - I expect I could download alternative keyboards on phone or tablet.

I've always wanted an alphabetical order one. I literally stare at my keyboard sometimes searching for a particular letter, convinced that it has disappeared altogether!

[Doglover]

My worst typos seem to show themselves when I am listening to one of my novels during the audio stage of editing. That's when I find out I've left out some little word like "the" or "to" or something like that. Why I don't notice those when I'm doing a visual edit is beyond me, but I sure do hear it when I'm listening.

How do you set up the audio stage of editing?

A fellow author sends me their final draft as a .mobi and I listen to that on my Kindle Fire to spot errors.

An audio stage of editing is a very good idea.

How many authors do this?

The latest edition of Word has an audio facility that will read it to you.

[Kay Inglis]

Some great typos there!

Thanks to everyone for their contributions.

[Kay Inglis]

My worst typos seem to show themselves when I am listening to one of my novels during the audio stage of editing. That's when I find out I've left out some little word like "the" or "to" or something like that. Why I don't notice those when I'm doing a visual edit is beyond me, but I sure do hear it when I'm listening.

How do you set up the audio stage of editing?

A fellow author sends me their final draft as a .mobi and I listen to that on my Kindle Fire to spot errors.

An audio stage of editing is a very good idea.

How many authors do this?

The latest edition of Word has an audio facility that will read it to you.

Really! I did not know that - thanks.

I don't know if I have the latest edition of Word.

I will have to go and take a look....

[Robin]

Not in my fiction, but a typo from my Uni days: orgasm instead of organism 

I'm sure Freud would have something to say about that.

Ha, probably

This thread is funny, but it's making me paranoid about my books... 

My worst typos seem to show themselves when I am listening to one of my novels during the audio stage of editing. That's when I find out I've left out some little word like "the" or "to" or something like that. Why I don't notice those when I'm doing a visual edit is beyond me, but I sure do hear it when I'm listening.

How do you set up the audio stage of editing?

A fellow author sends me their final draft as a .mobi and I listen to that on my Kindle Fire to spot errors.

An audio stage of editing is a very good idea.

How many authors do this?

The latest edition of Word has an audio facility that will read it to you.

Really! I did not know that - thanks.

I don't know if I have the latest edition of Word.

I will have to go and take a look....

Audio editing sounds like a good idea.

[Kay Inglis]

The latest edition of Word has an audio facility that will read it to you.

My version of Word is 2007 - it's just what came on the computer, I think.

I wonder if there is anything on my tablet that will read a document without me having to convert it?

Thanks for the tip. I will investigate.

[Doglover]

The latest edition of Word has an audio facility that will read it to you.

My version of Word is 2007 - it's just what came on the computer, I think.

I wonder if there is anything on my tablet that will read a document without me having to convert it?

Thanks for the tip. I will investigate.

On mine it's up in the right corner somewhere. I've already opened it up, so I can't remember how, but I think it's somewhere in the file list. Not sure if 2007 has it though. It would be very useful if I could only remember to use it!

[Victoria]

The latest edition of Word has an audio facility that will read it to you.

My version of Word is 2007 - it's just what came on the computer, I think.

I wonder if there is anything on my tablet that will read a document without me having to convert it?

Thanks for the tip. I will investigate.

I use natural reader the free version has two American and two British voices to choose from and you can change the speed it reads.


My typos are always Gwent (where I live) instead of Gwen, one of my characters’ names. Goblin becomes  Golbin, and in words like don’t, I always manage to type don;t

[dgcasey]

The latest edition of Word has an audio facility that will read it to you.

My version of Word is 2007 - it's just what came on the computer, I think.

I wonder if there is anything on my tablet that will read a document without me having to convert it?

Thanks for the tip. I will investigate.

I'm using the latest version of LibreOffice, which has an extension for text-to-speech. So, I can have LibreWrite read the text to me while I follow along.

[A Fading Street]

The latest edition of Word has an audio facility that will read it to you.

My version of Word is 2007 - it's just what came on the computer, I think.

I wonder if there is anything on my tablet that will read a document without me having to convert it?

Thanks for the tip. I will investigate.

On the most up to date version of word, it is under the REVIEW tab and is called READ ALOUD. Whether it is on 2007 I don't know but there are apps you can use instead.

[Tom Wood]

I use Scrivener and it doesn't put the red underline under a typo that I do all the time. Not being a touch-typist, I frequently hit the ; key instead of the ' key. So words like don;t won;t and so forth are not redlined. And hey, they aren't redlined here in the compose box either, even though redlined is!

[A Fading Street]

One of the best typos I have come across when editing was when one character shot another and the dead body lay in a poodle of blood

[Michelle Louring]

One of the best typos I have come across when editing was when one character shot another and the dead body lay in a poodle of blood

Woof!

[VanessaC]

My worst typos seem to show themselves when I am listening to one of my novels during the audio stage of editing. That's when I find out I've left out some little word like "the" or "to" or something like that. Why I don't notice those when I'm doing a visual edit is beyond me, but I sure do hear it when I'm listening.

How do you set up the audio stage of editing?

A fellow author sends me their final draft as a .mobi and I listen to that on my Kindle Fire to spot errors.

An audio stage of editing is a very good idea.

How many authors do this?

I've used two methods. 

Method one - requiring no special equipment, I simply read the words out loud myself - it's amazing how many really odd sentences I pick up that way! And missing words and switched around words also crop up - I'm really bad for mixing up "little" words - to, of, is, if, and so on.

Method two - I've got an app called "@Voice Aloud Reader" on my Android phone - I emailed a copy of my WIP to myself, downloaded it onto my phone and had the app read it to me.  The app takes a whole bunch of different formats, including e-books. Also, I'm sure lots of other apps are available, this just happened to be the highest rated free one when I was looking.

I'm not sure I got as many weird stuff ironed out on the app - I found it a lot harder to concentrate with the phone reading to me, which I suspect is more to do with my attention span than anything else!

Reading aloud / having the book read aloud takes a lot of time - I can only really do one chapter at a time, and need a longish break in between.  My chapters tend to run between 3k and 6k, depending on what's going on at that point in the story.

On balance, I think I prefer reading it myself as I pay more attention.  I've also found it an invaluable part of my final editing, and plan to keep going with it.

[VanessaC]

And back to the topic at hand ... One of my favourite typos, appropriate for the time of year - in a previous job, Word auto-corrected one of the bosses' names from "Helen" to "Halloween". 

[Vijaya]

"poodle of blood" is great. So many funny ones here.

Like Vanessa, I read aloud my work. It's even better if someone else reads it cold because you can hear all the clunky sentences. But still I miss a few. Next time I'll use the text to speech feature, which I didn't even know we had until someone mentioned it on kb.

[Kay Inglis]

I've used two methods. 

Method one - requiring no special equipment, I simply read the words out loud myself - it's amazing how many really odd sentences I pick up that way! And missing words and switched around words also crop up - I'm really bad for mixing up "little" words - to, of, is, if, and so on.

Actually, this is as good as any method, although time consuming.

My trouble it that, having written a story and read it through umpteen times for editing I am word-blind to it, but also not the least inclined to read it through out loud.

These days I have an edit-exchange agreement with a fellow author or use a professional editor for a final edit.

[munboy]

My fingers sometimes type out "a fresh shart" instead of "a fresh start."

I suspect my subconscious is trolling me for LOLz. 

Hey...I guess your day needs a fresh start after a fresh shart.

[munboy]

One of the best typos I have come across when editing was when one character shot another and the dead body lay in a poodle of blood

Poodle of Blood
Somebody should write that flash fiction for Halloween.

[dgcasey]

Poodle of Blood
Somebody should write that flash fiction for Halloween.

Sounds like a good Stephen King novel to me.   

[Robin]

Poodle of Blood
Somebody should write that flash fiction for Halloween.

Sounds like a good Stephen King novel to me.   

I'd read it 

[VanessaC]

Poodle of Blood
Somebody should write that flash fiction for Halloween.

Sounds like a good Stephen King novel to me.   

I'm picturing a large, rather scruffy poodle with pure white fur, a black leather collar with silver spike studs and a thousand yard stare. 

I'll just be behind the sofa ...

[A Fading Street]

Poodle of Blood
Somebody should write that flash fiction for Halloween.

Sounds like a good Stephen King novel to me.   

I'm picturing a large, rather scruffy poodle with pure white fur, a black leather collar with silver spike studs and a thousand yard stare. 

I'll just be behind the sofa ...

and long, very sharp fangs a Vampoodle 

[Oh_cabanaboy]

LOVE poodle of blood! I’d have kept that one in just for the lols.

My constant typo is ‘busty’ instead of ‘busy’. I catch it in novel edits, but it’s pretty awkward when it slips through in a work email... “sorry it’s taken a while to reply, I’m pretty busty at the moment.”

Sigh. Such a let down 

[VanessaC]

Poodle of Blood
Somebody should write that flash fiction for Halloween.

Sounds like a good Stephen King novel to me.   

I'm picturing a large, rather scruffy poodle with pure white fur, a black leather collar with silver spike studs and a thousand yard stare. 

I'll just be behind the sofa ...

and long, very sharp fangs a Vampoodle 

 

Vlad the Vampoodle

[WordMend]

It's so hard to notice your own mistakes. And of course, it's always after you send the email or publish the book that you notice them! When I write my own stuff, I always have things I need to go back and fix. Thankfully, I'm really good at finding other people's mistakes much easier than my own.

If anyone is interested, I can proofread for you. You can view my website at wordmend.squarespace.com or message me with any questions at all.

Happy writing, everyone.

[notthatamanda]

The latest edition of Word has an audio facility that will read it to you.
[/quote]

Holy shift this is awesome

Edit:  I always wanted a Bijon just so I could name it Cujo.  That is not a good reason to get a dog.  We have two rabbits instead.

[A Fading Street]

And for Word users---I know nothing about Scrivener---the other option to avoid problems is if you constantly type the same thing incorrectly-like Golbin for Goblin or Don;t for Don't, is to use the Auto-correct feature so Word checks for those things as you write and automatically replaces the wrong version with the right one. When I write I use it for character names too so I don't have to think about capitalising them.

[Pandorra]

OP I have been getting from and form mixed around like crazy lately, I was trying to remember some of my more embarrassing ones but I think I locked them in the pit of "Oh gods lets never go there again.." because I can't remember what they were now for the life of me...

[notthatamanda]

It's so hard to notice your own mistakes.

That read aloud function in word is spectacular.  I'm going through my current work, chapter by chapter.  Catching little things too, "the" instead of "a" or vice versa.  Did I really just use the same word twice in two consecutive sentences?  It's making me want to do audio books so much.

I wonder if Amazon knows Alexa is moonlighting for Microsoft.

[Pandorra]

It's so hard to notice your own mistakes.

That read aloud function in word is spectacular.  I'm going through my current work, chapter by chapter.  Catching little things too, "the" instead of "a" or vice versa.  Did I really just use the same word twice in two consecutive sentences?  It's making me want to do audio books so much.

I wonder if Amazon knows Alexa is moonlighting for Microsoft.

Just remember that once you put something in audio you can no longer edit... so whatever mistakes you find through that are there to stay ... lol

[tdecastro31]

The ones that embarrass me the most are ones like they're, their, there... it's, its, etc.  I know the difference, but when I am barfing forth through my fingers on the keyboard these often slip in...I also often have a tendency to leave of the 's' on plural objects.  Again, fingers moving faster than the mind.

[Rosie Scott]

I just had a fun typo in my WIP. I was writing a scene where my MC (a super-powerful battlemage) summons an apocalyptic meteor storm over the massive enemy army. Afterward, when describing how the meteors devastated legions of soldiers and permanently damaged the battlefield itself, I accidentally wrote, "The land was cracked and scared after the power of my spell caused even the earth to raise its hands and admit defeat." I meant to write scarred, but such typos make my day. At least this typo makes sense; I'd be terrified to face my MC, too.