"typo"

Charles C Doyle cdoyle at UGA.EDU
Wed Aug 11 20:20:57 UTC 2010


With the ubiquity of computerized word-processing, the standard (and historical) sense of "typo" as 'typographical error' (thus in the OED) probably needs revision.  As in the picture making the rounds on the internet today, the wrongly-spelled word "school" painted in large characters on a street in front of a school.  The error is being regularly referred to as a "typo" (not a "painto").

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100811/od_yblog_upshot/behold-americas-educational-system-captured-in-a-single-photograph

Now "typo" means simply 'misspelling'?  Or certain kinds of mispelling (like transposed characters) but not others?

--Charlie

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