Typos or Mistakes in Books

Okay, I realize this might qualify me as over-sensitive, but here it goes.

How often do you find mistakes in books, and does it bother you? I guess it doesn't really bother me, except in certain situations. Usually I just pencil a correction and continue. If it bothers me, I pencil a correction, fume, and... continue.

For example, I read the St. Martin's Handbook for Canadians, which is essentially a writing and grammar guide, and counted about 20 typos or mistakes. Not too many for a 700 pager, but enough considering one of the sections - the one on proof-reading - clearly talks about checking for mistakes and how important it is to fix them. I think mistakes in a style book is a bit hypocritical.

A worse example is a clear factual mistake in an Annie Dillard book, Teaching a Stone to Talk. It was not a first publication or a first edition. She's a Pulitzer Prize winning author!

Actually, I'm working on writing some non-fiction now, and am seeing all the potential for headaches, so ultimately I'm sympathetic, but nevertheless mistakes are mistakes.

Also, I figure most of the correction is out of writers' hands, since the mistakes probably enter during publication; however, you'd think someone is getting paid to correct stuff.

Okay, and finally, here's to the pot calling the kettle black, as I'm sure some mistake slipped into my above ode to anal retentiveness.

Never have I come across an author who has as many grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in her books as Laurell K. Hamilton. Her Anita Blake novels were never well-written, but her recent publications are embarrassing. The worst part: she misspells names of her characters ("Raphael" becomes "Rafael", "Dolph" becomes "Dolf", etc.).

Terry Goodkind's also in need of an editor. In his latest book, the word "paid" was spelled "payed" and "throne" was turned into "thrown". I don't mind a few mistakes (although it's better if the books don't have any) but getting the names of your characters wrong and ignoring obvious errors like the aforementioned ones... in my opinion, unprofessional.

On another note, I find it humorous that you found so many mistakes in a writing guide. Maybe twenty or so isn't that bad for a 700-page tome, but I think a book that's intended to instruct the reader on how to become a good writer should contain zero.

My discomfort with finding errors in books pales next to my detestation of inked in "corrections" on library copies. It's so much more disruptive than the errors themselves!

I don't really mind if there are spelling mistakes in books - I know what they are trying to say most of the time anyway - but factual errors do get to me a bit. You'd think that the author could take just a few minutes to google a certain fact in order to get it correct - whats a few minutes in something that could take years to finish?

The worst mistake I've seen was in my copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In a part where Harry is talking to Bagman (I think that's the name?), instead of saying "Bagman said" it says "Barty Crouch said". Barty Crouch wasn't even there

Grammatical errors don't bother me much. I usually take note of obvious spelling errors, but pass by them without much thought unless I reread the book often (such as the books I use in my reading class). However, errors such as referencing a certain character when they are not present, etc, seems to be a very poor job of proofing and does bother me. Not enough that I am disgusted, but enough that I think about it for a few paragraphs while reading.

Mistakes infuriate me. My History textbook, a college-level one too, on reporting on the similarities between the time era we're studying and the time era in Sister Carrie, misspelled the author's name, reported that the book took place in Philadelphia, when it was in Chicago and New York, spelled the antagonist's name incorrectly, and instead of using Marshall Fields Department Store (setting) it used the now Macy's....which was in New York instead of Chicago where Marshall Fields was. It made me so mad. I told my teacher and he made the entire class change every error and fixed the leftover textbooks as well.

bren said:

My discomfort with finding errors in books pales next to my detestation of inked in "corrections" on library copies. It's so much more disruptive than the errors themselves!

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I once bought a book from B. Dalton brand new, and it had a penned in correction that I didn't realize was there until I'd almost finished the book. It made me so mad that I took the book back, got my money back, and did not buy a replacement from B. Dalton. I instead bought it from the Waldenbooks upstairs in the mall. (My mall had B. Dalton and Waldenbooks in the same spot except on different floors.)

Speaking of Terry Goodkind, I have a trade paberback version of The Pillars of Creation which has a passage:

Here, though, 6, 7, 8where they felt safe, they had stayed for over two years.

I don't know what's up with that

I hate mistakes and usually write them down if I find them. One in particular being a sentence starting with "vShe" in The Historian. I couldn't believe that was missed in a spell-check or proof read. It started a very obvious paragraph for goodness sake!

What also annoys me is inconsistency of format. Take my history textbook for example: The exact same date was written in three different ways. I can't find it at the moment, but taking today/yesterdays date as the example:

15th February 2007
15 February 2007
February 15 2007

All within two paragraphs! It annoyed the heck out of me...

I usually am willing to forgive a mistake or two, but lately, especially in pocket book (now I guess they call them "mass market") paperbacks, I've noticed loads of errors. Some of them are so bad that you can tell where the proofer just gave up, or started checking every third or fifth page.
The worst part is that it leads me to assume that the people who are being hired at publishing houses need to go back to high school.

Sometimes the typos amuse me, but other times I find myself annoyed. Annoyances are when I find mistakes in classic works of literature. Still if I paid a good bit of money for a book I would like it to be as error free as possible.

funes said:

I usually am willing to forgive a mistake or two, but lately, especially in pocket book (now I guess they call them "mass market") paperbacks, I've noticed loads of errors. Some of them are so bad that you can tell where the proofer just gave up, or started checking every third or fifth page.
The worst part is that it leads me to assume that the people who are being hired at publishing houses need to go back to high school.

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I'll have to pay closer attention to the mass market paperbacks I read....I haven't noticed this trend. If I had a book that had a great many mistakes, I would also be annoyed, however, I haven't encountered more than a 1 or 2 per book while reading.

I once bought a replacement copy of my favourite book (having read my old one to tatters), only to find that an entire section had been printed twice! It was something like forty pages in the mid-section - I had finished reading part of a chapter and turned the page, only to begin the chapter again! I was amused until I discovered that the repeated section had taken over what was actually supposed to be there. Grrrr.

The only book I've noticed errors in that I have read is my copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I can remember at least 15 obvious errors, and I am no proof reader.

I remember a paperback version of The Chamber by John Grisham, having loads of typos, but that was years ago.

There have been others, but I usually just ignore them. tartan_skirt, I think I recall that error in The Historian! It amazes me that a spell-checker wouldn't pick something like that up. I mean, I'm assuming they run it through a spell checker first, and then have a proof reader go through it?

For once, I wanted to buy a book in my mother tongue. Problem with Afrikaans is that we don't have millions of authors to choose from.

So I settled on Agaat and decided to apply the page 99 test. Not only did it fail miserably, my head swirled with all the typo's! "hr" instead of "her" for example. Oi vey.

Usually mistakes don't bother me that much. Borders has started printing their own hardcover books of the classics - the ones with the black and white book jackets. I was pretty excited at first because they were way cheaper, but they I realized that its because they have a ton of typos and stuff. Like I said, though, I don't mind as much, so I've purchased quite a few of them.

I just finished a book yesterday that had some major problems, though. I had borrowed it from the library and its just a paperback, but there were at least two times in the dialogue that the character's names were switched! I figured it out, but I was pretty confused for a minute there...

I like seeing typos in books every now and then, because it reminds me that everyone is human. I make typos every now and then, and I'd feel like a loser if I read these entire books and they didn't even have one simple typo.

i've never come across a book that didn't have at least one. marion zimmer bradley is one of the worst with her avalon series. of course, i have done editing for a living, so i notice the smallest of errors. it drives me nuts.