# Editing mistakes - typos and factual errors you've seen
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [August 4, 2015, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996 "2015-08-04T18:51:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Pixel\_Dent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixel_Dent)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/21 "2015-08-05T15:36:45Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#):
>
> I had taken a snapshot of a graph in the [Metro.US](http://Metro.US) paper I saw yesterday. It was a graph demonstrating (and this is the actual headline) **Statistics Show That Teen Pregnancies Drop Drastically After the Age of 20**.
>
> I tried to find a link to the actual Metro website, but couldn’t find that graph again - even though it was just published yesterday.
If memory serves correctly, that paper was The Onion.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/22 "2015-08-05T15:46:55Z")
In one course I took in college, the bimbo who sat next to me submitted a paper about “Communist gorillas.” Her response when it came back covered in red ink? “Well, my Spell Check said it was all right.” :smack:
I spent the rest of that class doodling “Communist gorillas” and sliding them across the table to her. 😃
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### Author:  [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/23 "2015-08-05T15:58:15Z")
> [@Pixel\_Dent](#):
>
> If memory serves correctly, that paper was The Onion.
No. It was printed in yesterday’s [Metro.US](http://www.metro.us/) (at least in the Philadelphia print edition). There was no “from the Onion” attribution either; so it was basically ran as a genuine factoid there.
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### Author:  [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/24 "2015-08-05T16:31:57Z")
I’m currently reading a book that has dozens of weird mistakes, like this sentence:
> [@](#):
>
> The lobby was designed as a wide open area with no walls; therefore, no door and no windows, only lots of vegetation and a combination of rattan and wicked furniture."
You have to watch out for that wicked furniture!
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### Author:  [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/25 "2015-08-05T17:09:18Z")
> [@Zsofia](#):
>
> Oh, our local newspaper is full of them. My recent favorite was about Lindsey Graham’s joke about a, and I am not kidding here, “rotating first lay”.
>
> ETA - oh, my favorite “oh really, The State?” was when that Georgia funeral home was just dumping the bodies out back. This was the headline. Front page. Above the fold. A bazillion people had to have seen it along the way and just shrugged and let it happen. “Grizzly find in Georgia”.
As a former copy editor at several newspapers and other print publications, allow me to give some insight into this.
While your scenario may have happened (“A bazillion people had to have seen it along the way and just shrugged and let it happen”), quite often these bloopers get into print because the _last_ person to see the copy makes a change he/she _thinks_ is right and it goes straight to press.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/26 "2015-08-05T17:15:14Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#):
>
> I had taken a snapshot of a graph in the [Metro.US](http://Metro.US) paper I saw yesterday. It was a graph demonstrating (and this is the actual headline) **Statistics Show That Teen Pregnancies Drop Drastically After the Age of 20**.
>
> I tried to find a link to the actual Metro website, but couldn’t find that graph again - even though it was just published yesterday.
**giggles** Yes, definitely snapshot-worthy.
I recall reading about a headline I wish I’d seen in person: POLICE CHIEF: MURDERS UNSOLVED BECAUSE VICTIMS STAY QUIET
* * *
I was reading a John MacDonald reprint paperback and somewhere in the vicinity of page 119 flipped the page, read a sentence or two and stopped 😕 …
Did I just lose my place and page backwards? Did I read ahead by accident earlier? And how does this connect with Meyer just walking up to the boat, WTF??
The reprint press had duplicated nearly 50 pages, putting them all in a second time. Then when those pages came to an end, the book skipped over about that many that were just plain missing to pick up around page 166.
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### Author:  [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/27 "2015-08-05T17:22:01Z")
Seen on Jay Leno’s “Headlines”:
FOR SALE:
HOOKED ON PHONICS VOL. 1
BARLEY USED!
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/28 "2015-08-05T17:48:58Z")
Steven Levy’s “Hackers”
“This happened with the decimal print routine program. This was a subroutine … to translate binary numbers that the computer gave you into regular decimal numbers. In Saunders’ words, this problem became the “pawn’s ass of programming” - if you could write a decimal print routine which worked you knew enough about the computer to call yourself a programmer of sorts.”
I strongly suspect that either Levy or his editor was not familiar with the term “pons asinorum” [Pons asinorum - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pons_asinorum), and came up with something that sounded kind of like it instead.
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### Author:  [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/29 "2015-08-05T18:13:11Z")
> [@Double\_Foolscap](#):
>
> In my edition of _Jingo_ by Terry Pratchett, mayherestinpeace, Colon is referred to once by the text as “Cohen”.
My copy of John Scalzi’s **Redshirts** had a line spoken by a completely different character - apparently not a one-off. I started a [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=709104) about it.
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### Author:  [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/30 "2015-08-05T18:17:35Z")
Shortly after 9/11 the local newspaper had a story about the local Muslim community with the unfortunate headline _Muslims Prey on Fridays_. Beware!
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### Author:  [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/31 "2015-08-05T19:18:45Z")
I may have mentioned this before–one of my favorites along these lines is in the novel _Catcher in the Rye_. Early in the novel Holden has a conversation with a character named Ackley, who lives in Holden’s dorm at Pencey Prep. Ackley’s roommate is referred to twice in the book–once as “Herb Gale” and once as “ol’ Ely.” Oops…
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### Author:  [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/32 "2015-08-05T19:28:56Z")
Old fashioned books have tons. When I was collecting first edition books, they are referred to as “points” - i.e., points of differentiation. And the firsts with the earliest set of points - typically the errors - are called First Edition, First State.
Plenty of famous ones, e.g., Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises had an error in spelling internally, and the dust-jacket incorrectly refers to one of Hem’s earlier books as “In Our Times” vs. “In Our Time” So a First Edition, First State with those points is work a lot more than a First Ed, Second State.
Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, In addition to having the Oprah Book Club sticker applied only to have it removed 😉 also came with a tipped in errata sheet. Oops.
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### Author:  [@flano1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flano1)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/33 "2015-08-05T20:09:32Z")
a tailor nearby has a sign in the front window: " trouser and coat alternations ".
dissembling clothes!
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### Author:  [@Richey84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richey84)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/34 "2015-08-05T20:55:25Z")
Someone at work meant to write that an employee returned “part time” but instead typed “party time.” Got a good laugh when we reviewed that file.
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/35 "2015-08-05T21:19:19Z")
> [@Spiff](#):
>
> As a former copy editor at several newspapers and other print publications, allow me to give some insight into this.
>
> While your scenario may have happened (“A bazillion people had to have seen it along the way and just shrugged and let it happen”), quite often these bloopers get into print because the _last_ person to see the copy makes a change he/she _thinks_ is right and it goes straight to press.
My husband is a journalist and has been various kinds of editors. Asked him when we started dating if he’d ever had to say “stop the presses” and unfortunately he has not. I mean, I’m sure it’s a very expensive thing to do.
However, I think I’d have done it for “grizzly find in Georgia”.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/36 "2015-08-05T21:24:14Z")
> [@WordMan](#):
>
> So a First Edition, First State with those points is work a lot more than a First Ed, Second State.
\*\*[Voice of Maynard G Krebs]: \*\* Work!!! :eek:
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### Author:  [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/37 "2015-08-05T21:26:28Z")
Another one that sticks in my mind came from the book series on which the “True Blood” TV series was based. I don’t remember the title off-hand, but the one where they go to Dallas to meet some bigwig vampire king.
Sookie and all the main characters are led into a big mansion. They are brought in a side entrance and told to wait in the kitchen. Then, they are led into a dining room (the writer gave a very detailed description of going from one room to another), they meet the vampire king, some stuff happens. Then towards the end of the chapter, Sookie narrates “We all _left the kitchen_…”
Apparently during some draft revision, things went down in the kitchen, but the scene got switched to the dining room. And the book editor didn’t bother to read the new draft.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/38 "2015-08-05T21:35:57Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#):
>
> Apparently during some draft revision, things went down in the kitchen, but the scene got switched to the dining room. And the book editor didn’t bother to read the new draft.
Something like this happened in the first edition of Robert R McCammon’s _ **Gone South** _. The hero starts out driving a pickup, escapes at one point in a station wagon, and is driving the pickup again later on.
I think this was a momentary lapse of the author (the book itself is great), and it was corrected in later editions.
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/39 "2015-08-05T21:41:05Z")
Does saying “Many experts agree that Beethoven is history’s greatest musician” count? Isn’t is unanimous that title is held by Mozart?
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2015, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-mistakes-typos-and-factual-errors-youve-seen/726996/40 "2015-08-05T22:09:33Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#):
>
> Does saying “Many experts agree that Beethoven is history’s greatest musician” count? Isn’t is unanimous that title is held by Mozart?
Um…no. (Is anything in the arts ever truly unanimous?) Beethoven has a good number of advocates for “the greatest.”
(Heck, I’ve heard people seriously proposing this for Paul McCartney…)
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