Last night a faithful reader pointed out a typographical error — a redundant word, probably left behind after trying out a couple of phrasings — in First Date. Which was published in 2008 after, if memory serves, about ten months of editing and proofreading.
This sort of thing happens from time to time. I caught a typo myself in The Education of Heather S. just a few months ago, after some three years of working on it.
I think the brain is so adapted to correcting and compensating for linguistic hiccups that minor errors simply get fixed at a pre-conscious level. I wish it were otherwise — I take a lot of trouble to give readers an error-free product — but if there is a cure I haven’t found it.
Anyway: thanks, Amy, good catch.
— Frenulum
Fear naught. You're so much better than most writers that an occasional error only proves you're human.
ReplyDeleteErrors sneak into even commercially produced/published books. I'm currently reading "Land of Painted Caves" by Jean Auel. I spotted at least one punctuation error, and an instance of spelling "enough" as e-n-o-u-c-h -- and I haven't finished the book.
Oops. I see I'm not signed in.
Amos