There is a tendency among certain people to regard typos as a sign of Armageddon.

These people often become indignant upon sight of any sort of typographical error or other error that causes letters on a page or screen to appear in a way they deem improper. Even a gnat smushed on a monitor that might look like a wayward character sends these guys into palpitations.

This is because these people live in a world where errors in the printed word are a cause for alarm. It’s almost like they think the sight of a typo will rob them of their superhuman powers.

The weird thing about these typo-nazis is that they often make more errors than even the most negligent or drunken writer. I once was on a writer’s forum where writers were complaining about how people on the Internet made spelling and grammatical mistakes. And every single one of these rants contained misspelled words!

My favorite typo-hypochondriac was an old boss I had. My team was producing a product brochure and we were delivering to him a "comp," which is a mock-up of the brochure. It was the exact size and shape of the brochure. We had some of the photography in place and in other places we had just blocked out spaces and put in a rough sketch. Most of the text was in place but it had not yet gone through final review, so it was definitely draft-version stuff. We showed him the brochure to indicate our progress and get his input.

My boss took the brochure and a bit later called me in his office. He yelled at me. "This brochure is absolute garbage," he ranted. "You’re going to have to throw it out and start over from zero. I hope you have time to finish this, because it’s trash. Garbage!"

Now this particular boss of mine was the reason I got out of corporate life and he was known to be, shall we say, less than intelligent. So I wasn’t rattled or irritated. I knew I needed to find out what he meant. I actually thought for a second that he meant he did not like the photography or that we had approached the subject from the wrong angle. Maybe he did not even want a new product brochure!

"Look at this!" he fumed. He had thrown the brochure on the ground and stepped on it and now had to pick it up. (Again, not too bright.) Flipping through the pages of the brochure with his sausage-like fingers, he screamed, "Here! Look at this! This is totally wrong! Totally wrong!! This is garbage, you’ll have to start over!"

He was pointing at a footnote. The brochure had about six footnotes, which was customary in this particular industry. The footnotes were complete and in place even though the brochure was not finalized. However, one of the footnotes–in five-point type mind you and at the bottom of something like page 11–had a typo. I forget what it was but it was something like the transposition of a couple of letters in a word like "systematic."

Was it an error? Yes! Should it be corrected? Yes! But my boss was wrong in over-reacting. First of all, if ever an error could be easily fixed, it was that one. Second, we were showing him a comp and the purpose of a comp is to notice the flow, the order, the images, the text … to get a big picture overview. Anyone who proofreads footnotes on a comp is missing the point. Third, you don’t have to throw out a brochure and start over if you misspell one word in a footnote. That’s like driving from New York to Los Angeles, taking a wrong turn in Arizona and then driving all the way back to New York to start over.

I have often wondered why my old boss (and so many before and after him) react so angrily about typos.

As far as I can tell, nobody ever died of a typo.In the case of this footnote misspelling, nobody would have ever retrieved the wrong article even if the typo would have made it all the way to print (and it likely would have been caught in the first proofreading pass, and if not then, in the second or third). There was no harm done.

So why the big deal? In the case of my old boss, I think it was because he just generally enjoyed calling people idiots (and most of us were glad to return the favor).

And that’s why I think other people enjoy pointing out typos with a sense of indignation and furor. It’s a way of acting superior.

But here’s the rub. Anybody who keyboards knows that typos happen. Anybody who produces 10 or 20 pages of text daily knows that typos happen.

Here’s a big revelation: typos happen. Most of us in the world of putting words on paper or pixels on monitors recognizes that mistakes occur. We do our best to weed them out (even hiring people and putting systems in place to catch them) but some slip through.

If you’re one of those typo-nazis, I have a suggestion for your 2010 resolution. Get over it. Overlook the typos in other’s work and focus on the typos in your own.

And if you’re one of those generous individuals who has overlooked errors in my work or the work of other hard-working writers, God bless you!

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