Copy Editors

I'm one of those people for whom misspelled words (in English, anyway) stand out. And it's not because Word underlines the word in red. I just have a strongly visual memory, and the shape of the words just doesn't look right. It pains me when I re-read emails for which I've just clicked the Send button and I see a typo.

I also notice typos and misspellings in other people's work, as well. I find the errors in newspapers, books, etc. When I'm reading news sites or blogs or other web text, the same rule applies.

This morning, in order to follow up on last night's Oscar ceremony, I found a link on c|net which was about technical goofs in the movies (this year's nominees in particular). The article cited timeline flaws (period pieces with out-of-place technology), computer-related flaws, or even movie physics. The article was broken into ten vignettes, each about a mistake or error in a particular movie. What galled me about this? The article drew its data about goofs from one of my favorite websites, IMDb (Internet Movie Database). Best part? The c|net writer wrote IMDB as IMBD no fewer than thrice. Duh.

Edit: And clearly, I need to re-read my own written output.