What do you do when you are reading a book and see a typo / misspelling that the editors missed?

I would ignore it.

If it were a recent book, I would email the author, hoping for a response. Odds are low.

I would make it really easy for them to grasp the issue and respond. The subject would be something like, “Hey Jonathan, p.252 they misspelled ‘desserts’”.

I VERY rarely do this, but I got a pleasant response once from a famous author. Give it a chance. It’s free.

I once wrote an author to notify him of a serious misprint – it was a non-fiction title, and the captions of two figures had been exchanged, resulting in an error that was difficult to spot but would certainly result in further errors in any articles citing that content (kind of a big deal). He was grateful for the catch, and said it would be corrected in any subsequent editions. But of course, the first edition of this book is already out there, in libraries around the world, and nothing can be done to fix that.

I am going with @talljasperman on this one and just ignore it.

As a writer-editor, it makes me absolutely crazy to see typos in print, but I rarely do anything about it. By the time I see it, the damage is done. Alas, the grammar and spelling rules I was taught growing up, and the careful attention to editing I learned in my newspaper and advertising career, are ancient history.

I cross out and correct typos in books, documents, whatever I happen to be reading. Old habits are hard to break.

If I feel like the mistake may lead to confusion for later users, I’ll let someone know. I’ve only done this for forms and documents. Haven’t been motivated enough to contact a publisher.

My husband likes to tease me about it.

@fluthernutter I cross out and correct typos in books, documents, whatever I happen to be reading.

My parents were writers, and I never, never write in a book. It’s vandalism to me.

It’s interesting, because correcting an error should not be bad.

Now I’m curious why they taught me this.

@jaytkay, funny, but now that I think about it, my parents taught me the same thing, and they, too, were writers. Perhaps their Depression-era generation had more reference for books.

Nowadays I do most of my reading on a Kindle, but I think if I were reading an actual book and wanted to make a note in it, I would do so, despite my mother’s voice in my head telling me not to.

@jaytkay My parents didn’t teach me that, but I totally feel you. It does feel wrong. But I weigh the two evils and choose the lesser one. :P

That is a truly unfortunate side effect of e-readers and the growth of self publishing. Practically every self-published ebook is screaming for an editor. The only thing I usually do is mention it in a review.

If it were for people like me, marginalia would not exist. I won’t do it, but I appreciate it.

Hurray for marginalia! I salute you vandals!

It won’t help. I am an editor and find errors all the time.

Sigh, knowing they are human and some Gailie person out there with a goose would roll over in her grave if she caught it, but didn’t. :-P

Depends on the book and the nature of the error. If it’s a book that I’m just reading casually and the error is minor, I would ignore it. If it’s an error that may cause misinterpretation and I’m likely to read it again (for example, a textbook for a class and I might read it again for finals), I’ll write in the correction.

“But the context is clearly culinary, and the word have been “desserts”.”

Probably best not to pick nits?

At my work we give out textbooks. One of the books we bought maybe 100 copies. One copy was brought back to us because the boxes which should have contained the answers was blank. We had to recall the copies and send them all back. I have also come across books with pages printed upside down, or repeated pages. We just contact the suppliers. But for a minor typo I would just ignore it. I see them quite a bit especially as has been mentioned, in kindle versions

@Pachy Psst – “reverence”

^^ I was gonna pm him.

I’ve been a published author for 15 years. I’ve been published by three New York publishing houses. I have many friends who are writers. We discuss this topic at length. To summarize my general feelings about this, I have to say: Accept the fact that even people with the best intentions make mistakes. Let that settle with you . . . for a moment.

I believe too many people let something as small as a typo, a typo, twist them into knots. As an author, I want to know what you think of the story, the character development, the narrative, the plot. The average book contains 100,000 words. Some contain far more. Making sure that each of those words is error-free is a hefty undertaking. If the book has been published traditionally, 6 – 10 reviewers and editors may be involved with the production (including the author and any trusted friend he/she may have had read the book.) Try as they might, they may not catch everything.

This is a long response to say, send your typo concerns to the publishers. They are the ones who control updates to the work. It’s also great to let them hear directly from readers that readers are concerned with the quality of the work that’s being produced. Thank you for that.

(After checking this post four times for typos, I ask your pardon if you should find one or more.)

Years ago I had an acquaintance who had a large patch of post-it notes printed with “You made a boo boo” on them. This was pre-internet and he used them to badger the reporters and staff writers of his local newspaper. They were a sloppy lot, and he was a purist.

He’d send an article back to the reporter with the post-it notes and corrections attached.

. It probably ended in a draw.

@give_seek – thanks for the reply. I wonder if I have read any of your books???

I certainly don’t blame the author. I do blame the proofreaders and publishers for letting these things through. I would think that one of them would have caught the error.

@elbanditoroso In a perfect world, all errors would be caught. When you’re dealing with humans beings, you could have 100 people reviewing a document. One word out of those 100,000 could be misspelled and slip through.

In my day job, I write professional documents—I’ve done this for nearly 30 years for various companies. The companies I’ve worked for have had tight review processes involving several layers of individuals. Sometimes we get it all right. Often, we don’t. Occasionally, a teh appears where a the should be. Because I have decades of experience with this and first-hand knowledge of people busting their butts to get everything right and being crestfallen when something is missed, I have a more intimate perspective. Editors are not bumbling idiots who don’t care or haven’t implemented every measure to make sure that copy is correct. If you’ve ever had a time in your life when, despite your best effort to prevent it, something regrettable happened, I appeal to your empathy.

Rather than being sidelined by the few words that, despite the best efforts of fallible humans, contain errors, wouldn’t it be better to focus on the hundreds of thousands of words that are wonderfully correct?

This is an interesting thread that seems to have taken the issue into “what can we do to help?” territory. I trust the experienced writers among us who tell us there’s nothing to be done once the thing is in print. But what about me/you/the reader? It drives me nuts to see typos, even floundering sentence construction. I just can’t continue to read a book, even a book written by someone I care for, if the proofreading is inadequate. I just can’t do it. How do you all deal with that? Is this a whole new question?

@give_seek – interesting too how you (and others) jump to the conclusion that I am obsessing on this. I’m not. I finished the book in question (although the plot sort of weakened in the last 30 pages – it came together a little to cutely for my taste.

I’d liken my objection to misspellings to the experience of buying a car. You expect, when buying a car, that there are no scratches on the paint, that the windows aren’t cracked or chipped, all the screws and bolts are tightened, and that the seat belts work. But posit that the left rear seat is a different color than all the others. It works just fine, and my passengers are perfectly safe. It in no way reduces the engine’s ability to drive, and in all other respects that car is perfect.

Would it be out of place to complain, @give_seek, even though “thousands of parts are wonderfully correct”?

Is it out of place to “complain” about two typos that you found on page 252? Yes.

The word I would use to describe what I’m percieving from your question is not obsessive but rather excessive. Your use of the word “complain” to describe what you’d like to do about the typos you’ve found seems to support this perception.

As I stated in my first post in this thread, I’m very much in favor of making the publisher aware of the mistakes. Coming from a reader, it will have a greater impact. This can certainly be done in the spirit of advisement instead of complaint.

I barely notice it, or read over it. I’m not going to call the publisher or anything crazy like that…

@give_seek: In the spirit of your last answer, let me advise you that you misspelled “perceiving.”

My eye starts to twitch and I immediately think of @janbb and @gailcalled. No, really, this happened recently. I spotted two typos within a half an hour of each other, in the same book. All I could think was that I was turning into one of the Fluther librarians. I almost posted a question about it, I’m glad you did. Lol.

I am not a librarian.

@gailcalled Maybe not technically, but I do consider you to be a Fluther librarian.

For the sake of accuracy, I might be your proof reader or editor, even though I have abdicated that job also.

“I was just reading the new Jonathan Kellerman book entitle Motive.”
”...clearly culinary, and the word have been “desserts”.”

Not necessarily the most observant or meticulous pool for this poll?

I don’t know that I’ve ever bought the first edition of a first run book, and I can’t imagine giving a shit otherwise. I’ve been called out on Fluther for the desert/dessert error and you know what? I’m entitle. The word have been spelled correctly if the spellcheck was working!

@ibstubro Spellcheck wouldn’t pick up the desert/dessert error, because each is a correctly spelled word. It’s the context that dictates which word should be used. This is why human editors are superior to spellcheck.

You say you don’t care about the difference between desert and dessert. I’m not sure why that is. If you were at an auction, and the items were repeatedly described as “vintage glace” instead of “vintage glass”, you wouldn’t give a shit? Or would you think the writer should learn how to spell “glass”?

What I always wonder when I see misspelled words in books is just how much harder it will be for younger generations to figure out how anything is spelled. I learned how to spell by reading a lot; I think this is true of a lot of people. So it bothers me to think that people will pick up misspellings from the very tools they could be using to improve their spelling.

Tip. Read my post for meaning, @dappled_leaves, not your perception.

As ever, @ibstubro, a response that simply tells someone to re-read something is unhelpful. If you have a point, you are welcome to make it.

Okay, @dappled_leaves, read this out loud,
“I was just reading the new Jonathan Kellerman book entitle Motive.”
””...clearly culinary, and the word have been “desserts”.”

Quotes from the OP about typo/misspellings.

Apply to my post that you believed to refer to spellcheck.

@ibstubro You have proved my point in reposting what you already wrote above. If you have a point to make, please state what it is. Because your previous words have not made it.

And it would be nice if you didn’t blame your readers when your own writing is not clear.

Your overriding desire to quibble with me obscures the fact that I’m quoting the OP and subtly making the point that most people don’t notice typos, @dappled_leaves.

Unsubtle:
“book entitle Motive.”
“the word have been “desserts”.”

The irony of a question about typos containing typos that go unmentioned.
GO
Great Obtuseness x 2.

@ibstubro Why do you continue to repeat the part of your post that I was not responding to?

Why are your arguing with me, @dappled_leaves, when I merely reused the mistakes in the OP?

” I’ve been called out on Fluther for the desert/dessert error and you know what? I’m entitle. The word have been spelled correctly if the spellcheck was working!”
Decidedly does not say I do not care about the difference between dessert and desert.
It makes creative re-use of the mistakes in the OP and the flawed thinking of the OP’s “I think that the publisher’s spellchecker didn’t pick up the context misspelling.”

So you are arguing with me over mistakes contained in @elbanditoroso‘s question about what jellies would do if they caught an error in print.

(erm.. I’m entitled.)

@ibstubro Okay. You’ve done a bit of selective editing there. This is what I was responding to in my post:

“I don’t know that I’ve ever bought the first edition of a first run book, and I can’t imagine giving a shit otherwise. I’ve been called out on Fluther for the desert/dessert error and you know what? I’m entitle.”

I read this as: “I have made the error of using desert when I meant dessert (or the reverse) myself, and I can’t imagine giving a shit seeing such an error in a book’s first printing”.

That is what my post was responding to. I have no idea why we are miscommunicating over this… though it is not surprising to me, since you and I have had this type of exchange before. I was not responding to your first paragraph at all.

Did I not interpret your words correctly? Do you still think my response was inappropriate? If I did not interpret your words correctly, what exactly did you mean?

(em…”I’m entitle”.)

The problem with you guys pointing out my misspellings in my original post seems rather petty and vindictive. Sure, I made some mistakes. I readily admit it.

But the difference – my posts were not vetted by an editor, two or three (or maybe five) readers, etc. I’m not publishing my fluther wisdom in a book that I’m trying to sell.

A publisher (and for that matter, the author) is writing either for pay or for royalties, or both. I’ll bet that @give_seek gets paid for his/her writing.

So your schadenfreude at finding my typos fails to take into account that the situations are diametrically opposed. But, nice try.

Sorry, @elbanditoroso, I was the only one acknowledging the typos in the OP. It was an attempt to point out the irony of hyper-vigilant editors failing to notice two fairly glaring errors in the question they were responding too.

Apparently a typo is only significant if a picky person happens to notice and choose to make an issue of it. I wasn’t taking issue with you, but pointing out that the vast majority of people auto-correct most errors in written language. In my opinion, a person calling out every language error they notice, makes them look petty because of the large number they miss.

What could possibly be gained by calling out an error in a book that is not a first edition/new release (so later editions could be corrected) or a teaching tool?

I’m an editor at heart. When I subscribed to the local ‘newspaper’ I would occasionally attack it with a red pencil and proper proofreading marks. Just for my own amusement and to prove how much better/smarter I am than most of the staff. Did I feel a need to share that with anyone other than myself? Hell no! That would just be petty. It’s not like it was the HS paper and I was responsible for teaching people. When it comes to language I sometimes like proving myself right, but proving other people wrong usually just seems petty. Just as there are certain personality types that feel the best was to make themselves look better is to make someone else look bad.

PM me if this doesn’t make sense. :-)

Did anyone see the announcement from Donald Trump’s camp inviting people to a rally (read presidential announcement) to “make Ameria great”? Talk about a typo that should have been caught. Wow.