typos, noticing or not

[Joel S. Berson]

Who  noticed the "typo" in my sentence?  (At the end below.)  Who did
not?  How many in each group?  Why?

I speculate that many (including myself) did not notice the typo in
Arnold's "original broadway case" because they were clued in by the
preceding "broadway".  But that many did notice my typo because there
was no informing context preceding it.  For example, I could have
been talking about doctors analyzing casts.

Joel

At 2/14/2008 12:10 PM, Joel S. 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)?

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