typos

[Joel S. Berson]

At 2/14/2008 11:59 AM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>i just wrote about the "original broadway case" -- intending "cast",
>of course.  so what kind of typo is that?
>
>well, it could be a finger misfire, getting E instead of T (two keys
>away).  or it could be a "completion error", in which, having typed
>CAS, i went on to complete it as the very frequent word CASE -- the
>wetware equivalent of software completion errors.  i suspect it was
>the latter, but who knows?
>
>there's a lot of indeterminacy in analyzing typos.  i'm currently
>working on a Language Log piece with a section on the entertaining
>error "broccoli rabbi" for "broccoli rabe", in a Gordon Biersch menu
>description.  i have five alternative analyses.

Do you also have five alternative analyses of the casts of those who
read the typo and don't notice it (understanding the message as intended)?

Joel


>arnold
>
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org