typos

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Feb 14, 2008, at 9:10 AM, Joel Berson wrote:

> 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)?

this is one of the most durable observations of those who study
language errors: most of them go unnoticed, and are silently (and
unconsciously) "corrected" by readers and listeners.  this is, in
fact, a very heartening fact: readers and listeners are treating
linguistic material generously, working (rapidly and unconsciously) to
extract an account of the intentions of the person who produced the
material.  those who read and listen with an intention to pounce on
errors are behaving uncooperatively (or are linguistics or
psychologists collecting errors, or are people whose ordinary
perceptual mechanisms have been contaminated by experience
proofreading, editing, or grading linguistic productions; i myself
fall into both of these last two groups).

arnold

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