I’d say the biggest problem facing this country is typos. Typos are cropping up everywhere. In advertisements, in emails, and even within the very words your reading now.
The main reason for this is your phone, which thinks it’s smarter than you. Your phone will automatically correct your text without your consent.
As a writer, typos deeply affect my life. Whenever an error is found in this column, I usually learn about it in the form of irate emails, direct messages, and ransom notes.
I received one such email this morning, which read, verbatim: “…It’s unprofessional for your article’s title to contain such a glaring typo. Franky, I cannot believe this happened.”
I can only assume that I am “Franky.” Which means this emailer was name-calling. Which, honestly, is something I will not Stan for.
Americans make billions of typos every minute. And that’s not an exaggeration. On average, Americans send 250 million texts per hour. Over 60 percent of our texts contain serious topography eros.
You can also find major-league typos in most printed material that is around you.
One such typo I will never forget occurred when a public library advertised a summer reading program. The billboard used the library’s catchy slogan, which read: “This summer, it’s time to go pubic.”
Talk about a nightmare for pubic relations.
Another consequential typo happened within a eulogy my cousin wrote. This was published in the printed order-of-service handout. The eulogy began: “Charles will always remain my deadest friend.”
Do you want to know why there are so many typos in written content these days? Do you want to KNOW why typos are occurring in major published works more than ever before in history?
Autocorrect, baby.
See, long ago if you wrote something, say, on a typewriter, whenever you made a mistake you were usually aware of it. You’d just correct the mistake later.
But then, autocorrect came along, instantly altering your words, seconds after you type them, so that sometimes you have absolutely no idea any changes half ben mad.
The autocorrect feature replaces perfectly correct words with incorrect ones. Sometimes these changes are no big deal. Other times, I honestly do not know what exactly autocorrect was smoking.
Such as the time I received a text from my aunt, which read: “We’re going to Orlando for vacation with the kids! Phil and I are finally going to Divorce!”
And there was the time our friend Lynette texted her 15-year-old “precious little granddaughter” on her birthday. The text read:
“How’s my pregnant little granddaughter on her special day?”
Once, my friend’s 16-year-old son was sending a text to his girlfriend, who is a Church of Christ preacher’s daughter. He was asking if she wanted to go out for Chinese food. The text read:
“Hey, do you wanna have Children with me on Wednesday night?”
And of course there was the time my wife left a surprise thank-you gift basket on her friend’s porch, which her friend had warned her, many times, was not necessary. When her friend found the basket, she playfully texted: “I’m going to kick your little butt!”
“Wait,” I can hear many of you saying. “What’s the big deal about THAT text?”
The big deal is, the first K in “kick” had been autocorrected to L.
So, yes. Occasionally you will see typos in my work. Often, these mistakes are mine, and I take full responsibility for them. But other times—and this is no excuse—the mistakes are made by computer automatically as the article is being proofread by a crack team of editors.
Sometimes, these misspellings are insignificant ones. Other times these mistakes are very impotent.
Either way, I offer my heartfelt apologies for anyone who has been affected or traumatized by such grammatical mishaps. All I can say is, these mistakes are not intentional. Autocorrect has become my worst enema.
Very truly yours,
—Franky