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The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time
The signs of the times are missing apostrophes.
The world needed a hero, but how would an editor with no off-switch answer the call? For Jeff Deck, the writing was literally on the “NO TRESSPASSING.” In that moment, his greater purpose became clear. Dark hordes of typos had descended upon civilization… and only he could wield the marker to defeat them.
Recruiting his friend Benjamin and other valiant companions, he created the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL). Armed with markers, chalk, and correction fluid, they circumnavigated America, righting the glaring errors displayed in grocery stores, museums, malls, restaurants, mini-golf courses, beaches, and even a national park. Jeff and Benjamin championed the cause of clear communication, blogging about their adventures transforming horor into horror , it’s into its , and coconunut into coconut .
But at the Grand Canyon, they took one correction too fixing the bad grammar in a fake Native American watchtower. The government charged them with defacing federal property and summoned them to court—with a typo-ridden complaint that claimed that they had violated “criminal statues.” Now the press turned these paragons of punctuation into “grammar vigilantes,” airing errors about their errant errand..
The radiant dream of TEAL would not fade, though. Beneath all those misspelled words and mislaid apostrophes, Jeff and Benjamin unearthed deeper dilemmas about education, race, history, and how we communicate. Ultimately their typo-hunting journey tells a larger story not just of proper punctuation but of the power of language and literacy—and the importance of always taking a second look.
The world needed a hero, but how would an editor with no off-switch answer the call? For Jeff Deck, the writing was literally on the “NO TRESSPASSING.” In that moment, his greater purpose became clear. Dark hordes of typos had descended upon civilization… and only he could wield the marker to defeat them.
Recruiting his friend Benjamin and other valiant companions, he created the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL). Armed with markers, chalk, and correction fluid, they circumnavigated America, righting the glaring errors displayed in grocery stores, museums, malls, restaurants, mini-golf courses, beaches, and even a national park. Jeff and Benjamin championed the cause of clear communication, blogging about their adventures transforming horor into horror , it’s into its , and coconunut into coconut .
But at the Grand Canyon, they took one correction too fixing the bad grammar in a fake Native American watchtower. The government charged them with defacing federal property and summoned them to court—with a typo-ridden complaint that claimed that they had violated “criminal statues.” Now the press turned these paragons of punctuation into “grammar vigilantes,” airing errors about their errant errand..
The radiant dream of TEAL would not fade, though. Beneath all those misspelled words and mislaid apostrophes, Jeff and Benjamin unearthed deeper dilemmas about education, race, history, and how we communicate. Ultimately their typo-hunting journey tells a larger story not just of proper punctuation but of the power of language and literacy—and the importance of always taking a second look.
269 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
70 people are currently reading
1498 people want to read
About the author
Jeff Deck
18 books50 followersJeff Deck is a fiction ghostwriter and editor who lives in Maine with his wife, Jane, and their silly dog, Burleigh. Deck writes science fiction, fantasy, horror, dark fantasy, and other speculative fiction.
Deck's work includes the urban fantasy / mystery series "The Shadow Over Portsmouth" (Book 1: "City of Ports," Book 2: "City of Games," Book 3: "City of Notions").
He is also the author of the supernatural thriller novel "The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley" the sci-fi gaming adventure novel "Player Choice," and (with Benjamin D. Herson) the nonfiction book "The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time" (Crown/Random House).
In 2008, Deck took a road trip across the U.S. with friends to fix typos in signage and nearly wound up in federal prison. He enjoys reading speculative fiction, exploring New England with his family, playing video games, and plundering from the past and future.
Deck's work includes the urban fantasy / mystery series "The Shadow Over Portsmouth" (Book 1: "City of Ports," Book 2: "City of Games," Book 3: "City of Notions").
He is also the author of the supernatural thriller novel "The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley" the sci-fi gaming adventure novel "Player Choice," and (with Benjamin D. Herson) the nonfiction book "The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time" (Crown/Random House).
In 2008, Deck took a road trip across the U.S. with friends to fix typos in signage and nearly wound up in federal prison. He enjoys reading speculative fiction, exploring New England with his family, playing video games, and plundering from the past and future.
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September 15, 2016
This book was lent to me by a co-worker who thought that I, being a copy editor myself, would enjoy this true story of a copy editor and his friends traveling around the country correcting typos on signs. I was skeptical—honestly, I'm a fan of good grammar and spelling, but I've long accepted that typos are not going anywhere and I don't generally get worked up about them anymore. However, it seemed to me that the author was going for a Bill Bryson vibe, so I tried to be optimistic.
Unfortunately, my optimism faded quickly. At one point, more than halfway through the trip, a former professor of the author expresses surprise that he and his traveling companions haven't gotten punched in the face by anyone, and I agree. It's generally just obnoxious to go up to customer-service employees in businesses, tell them their signs are wrong, and ask to change them. A lot of the employees worried they'd get in trouble with their bosses if they allowed Deck and his friends to change their signs, which Deck extrapolates into some kind of fear of, or unquestioning obedience to, authority. He even compares it to that experiment where people give what they think are dangerous shocks to other people because a man in a white coat is standing over them! I kept thinking to myself, "No, you [expletive redacted], they're afraid of their bosses because They don't want to get fired!" I mean, hello? Hasn't this guy ever worked a customer-service job himself? Most managers are so afraid of getting fired themselves that they redirect that onto their employees and get rid of anyone who causes any sort of problem. Anyone who's worked in customer service has experienced this. The fact that Deck was so willing to obliviously harass minimum-wage workers in pursuit of his "quest" bugged the crap out of me.
Then there's the fact that, when Deck and his friends were able to change signs, they usually did a terrible job of it and made the signs look much worse than before, gobbed with Wite-Out or with extra letters squeezed in where they didn't really fit. They even , which infuriated me. Granted, they did , but the whole time I got the feeling Deck and his partner in crime thought they were the wronged party somehow—which did nothing to endear them to me.
Occasionally, Deck tries to justify his whole excursion (which he clearly undertook just to get a book deal out of it) by talking about the different schools of thought on typos and misspellings—i.e., the people who think some rules are necessary versus the people who think language is constantly evolving, and the middle ground between the two. These sections were mostly boring, and his girlfriend's apparent belief that no one can ever really say what's "right" or "wrong" when it comes to language caused me much eye-rolling, although not as much eye-rolling as her use of baby talk. Authors, please do us all a favor and don't include your significant other's baby talk in your memoir. No one wants to read that. Or at the very least, in a book about typos, make sure your girlfriend's pet name for you is spelled consistently throughout.
So who should read this book? If you care a lot about the correction of typos and don't find the idea of someone going around hassling people as off-putting as I did, you may like this. Everyone else can probably find something better to read.
Unfortunately, my optimism faded quickly. At one point, more than halfway through the trip, a former professor of the author expresses surprise that he and his traveling companions haven't gotten punched in the face by anyone, and I agree. It's generally just obnoxious to go up to customer-service employees in businesses, tell them their signs are wrong, and ask to change them. A lot of the employees worried they'd get in trouble with their bosses if they allowed Deck and his friends to change their signs, which Deck extrapolates into some kind of fear of, or unquestioning obedience to, authority. He even compares it to that experiment where people give what they think are dangerous shocks to other people because a man in a white coat is standing over them! I kept thinking to myself, "No, you [expletive redacted], they're afraid of their bosses because They don't want to get fired!" I mean, hello? Hasn't this guy ever worked a customer-service job himself? Most managers are so afraid of getting fired themselves that they redirect that onto their employees and get rid of anyone who causes any sort of problem. Anyone who's worked in customer service has experienced this. The fact that Deck was so willing to obliviously harass minimum-wage workers in pursuit of his "quest" bugged the crap out of me.
Then there's the fact that, when Deck and his friends were able to change signs, they usually did a terrible job of it and made the signs look much worse than before, gobbed with Wite-Out or with extra letters squeezed in where they didn't really fit. They even , which infuriated me. Granted, they did , but the whole time I got the feeling Deck and his partner in crime thought they were the wronged party somehow—which did nothing to endear them to me.
Occasionally, Deck tries to justify his whole excursion (which he clearly undertook just to get a book deal out of it) by talking about the different schools of thought on typos and misspellings—i.e., the people who think some rules are necessary versus the people who think language is constantly evolving, and the middle ground between the two. These sections were mostly boring, and his girlfriend's apparent belief that no one can ever really say what's "right" or "wrong" when it comes to language caused me much eye-rolling, although not as much eye-rolling as her use of baby talk. Authors, please do us all a favor and don't include your significant other's baby talk in your memoir. No one wants to read that. Or at the very least, in a book about typos, make sure your girlfriend's pet name for you is spelled consistently throughout.
So who should read this book? If you care a lot about the correction of typos and don't find the idea of someone going around hassling people as off-putting as I did, you may like this. Everyone else can probably find something better to read.
May 14, 2013
I'm an editor. Sure, I work at a pharmaceutical ad agency, not the New York Times, but I am paid to catch typos, correct grammar, and uphold the tenets of the style guide. At work, I care about these things. Today, for instance, I spent half an hour fixing one sentence. I talked the fix over with two different editors. Then I talked to the copywriter about the sentence, and then we fixed it. Then, after we fixed it, I fixed it again. At work, people expect me to care.
But off the clock, I don't care. I rarely find typos in novels or newspapers. If someone's Facebook status lacks grammar fundamentals, I don't comment with a fix. I shrug away extraneous quote marks on sandwich boards outside restaurants. I am not offended by these things, and I suspect that anyone who claims to be is either sanctimonious or pedantic. Either way, I can't stand those people. They make me itchy.
And yet I bought The Great Typo Hunt. I thought I might find camaraderie with some guys traveling across the country correcting typos on signs and placards both outside and inside businesses. I thought it might be like On The Road for nerds. I was wrong.
The zeal with which these guys attacked their cause was admirable, but I'm unconvinced that they succeeded in any way. So they fixed misspellings, correctly placed misplaced apostrophes, rerouted some sentences. And? The point is? Long passages explain their mission to impart an understanding of yadda yadda yadda. (Maybe it pays off in the end, but I didn't stick around to find out; I bailed on the book on page 120.) As they point out on page 87, "Any sign that we noted along the entire trip could be gone tomorrow." If only they had given up right there.
Oh, and I found a typo. Page 77, last paragraph, seventh line: "an heinous discovery." Should be "a heinous discovery." Feel free to correct it in your copy. I'm sure these guys would appreciate it.
But off the clock, I don't care. I rarely find typos in novels or newspapers. If someone's Facebook status lacks grammar fundamentals, I don't comment with a fix. I shrug away extraneous quote marks on sandwich boards outside restaurants. I am not offended by these things, and I suspect that anyone who claims to be is either sanctimonious or pedantic. Either way, I can't stand those people. They make me itchy.
And yet I bought The Great Typo Hunt. I thought I might find camaraderie with some guys traveling across the country correcting typos on signs and placards both outside and inside businesses. I thought it might be like On The Road for nerds. I was wrong.
The zeal with which these guys attacked their cause was admirable, but I'm unconvinced that they succeeded in any way. So they fixed misspellings, correctly placed misplaced apostrophes, rerouted some sentences. And? The point is? Long passages explain their mission to impart an understanding of yadda yadda yadda. (Maybe it pays off in the end, but I didn't stick around to find out; I bailed on the book on page 120.) As they point out on page 87, "Any sign that we noted along the entire trip could be gone tomorrow." If only they had given up right there.
Oh, and I found a typo. Page 77, last paragraph, seventh line: "an heinous discovery." Should be "a heinous discovery." Feel free to correct it in your copy. I'm sure these guys would appreciate it.
August 18, 2010
So um, this book is awesome. I'm not even sure where to start with how awesomely well put together this book is (guess that's what happens when an editor writes a book). First of all Borders has it shelved in the "Writing Style" section of the store, and while I realize that it is about grammar and punctuation I feel that categorization it has been given is misleading. What this book achieves is not a dry or tedious lecture on grammatical style, but rather a Bill Bryson-esque travel writing style which conveys a sense of fun and adventure to its reader.
This book manages to be engaging throughout, without losing steam near the end like some travel writers (or just nonfiction writers in general) I've encountered in the past. It also does an excellent job of exploring tangents without getting lost in them.
One of the biggest and most pleasant surprises that awaited me in this book is how unpretentious the author is (both Jeff and Benjamin are listed as the authors, but Jeff is the narrator so for now he's the author I'm going to refer to). What I love about him is that as he states many times it's not about catching someone making a mistake it is about setting the mistake right without judgment of the individual. He is also continually considering the new points of view that the individuals he encounters bring up, which I really appreciate. Along these lines he does something truly amazing, he acknowledges a point which was bothering me from the very start of my reading. The fact that the standardization of grammar, punctuation and spelling is actually a relatively new thing (only a couple of hundred years old). He acknowledges this fact without being dismissive or condescending and in fact uses it as an opportunity for an intelligent debate over how it informs his quest.
On a more personal note I knew pretty much from the get go that I was going to at least get a moderate amount of enjoyment out of this book. The author is only five years older than me and seems to share a great many interests with me and the sort of people I tend to befriend. This had the result of making all of his cultural references particularly amusing for me. He also manages to reference tons of books and authors without it sounding the least bit forced or pretentious. Every time I'd come across a reference to a book, author or cultural moment that I recognized (and there were a lot) I'd find myself smiling and loving him just a little bit more. This isn't always the case, I've read plenty of books where the author's reference to a work of literature will leave me thinking "you're just saying that to sound intelligent, but really you're a moron."
*Extra bonus points for using the word "mountebank" (p.127).
*And I was nerdishly(spell check be damned) glee-filled by his numerous nods to Shakespeare.
This book manages to be engaging throughout, without losing steam near the end like some travel writers (or just nonfiction writers in general) I've encountered in the past. It also does an excellent job of exploring tangents without getting lost in them.
One of the biggest and most pleasant surprises that awaited me in this book is how unpretentious the author is (both Jeff and Benjamin are listed as the authors, but Jeff is the narrator so for now he's the author I'm going to refer to). What I love about him is that as he states many times it's not about catching someone making a mistake it is about setting the mistake right without judgment of the individual. He is also continually considering the new points of view that the individuals he encounters bring up, which I really appreciate. Along these lines he does something truly amazing, he acknowledges a point which was bothering me from the very start of my reading. The fact that the standardization of grammar, punctuation and spelling is actually a relatively new thing (only a couple of hundred years old). He acknowledges this fact without being dismissive or condescending and in fact uses it as an opportunity for an intelligent debate over how it informs his quest.
On a more personal note I knew pretty much from the get go that I was going to at least get a moderate amount of enjoyment out of this book. The author is only five years older than me and seems to share a great many interests with me and the sort of people I tend to befriend. This had the result of making all of his cultural references particularly amusing for me. He also manages to reference tons of books and authors without it sounding the least bit forced or pretentious. Every time I'd come across a reference to a book, author or cultural moment that I recognized (and there were a lot) I'd find myself smiling and loving him just a little bit more. This isn't always the case, I've read plenty of books where the author's reference to a work of literature will leave me thinking "you're just saying that to sound intelligent, but really you're a moron."
*Extra bonus points for using the word "mountebank" (p.127).
*And I was nerdishly(spell check be damned) glee-filled by his numerous nods to Shakespeare.
September 16, 2016
I love the concept of this book. It’s about a couple of guys who go on a road trip, traveling all over the United States correcting spelling and punctuation errors on public signs. They take before and after photographs and keep score of typos found vs. typos fixed.
Some business owners are agreeable and even grateful for the corrections. Some are indifferent, but permit the mistakes to be fixed. Others stubbornly refuse to allow corrections. The guys take care to make any corrections as subtle as possible, and I share the author’s frustration with the woman who would “rather have a sign spelled incorrectly than a tacky-looking sign”. The guys sometimes make changes surreptitiously, without asking for permission first, and in one instance this gets them into pretty bad trouble.
Despite my whole-hearted endorsement of their mission, I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I expected to. There was something about the narrative tone that put me off. For one thing, the author writes florid prose - mostly to be funny, I realize, but I found it annoying. There is entirely too much stuff like: "I discussed my cross-country typo-hunting notion with barely anyone, cradling it close and secret lest the scrutiny of others burn mortal wounds into its gossamer body."
The book seemed a little disingenuous. For instance, I’m glad that the author included a discussion of descriptivism vs. prescriptivism, but I doubt that his opinions were actually formed by a particular experience on this trip. He makes a big deal about the Typo Hunt being a personal journey, his humble attempt to change the world, and yet he pauses in his pilgrimage to give interviews and to allow a TV camera crew to film him in action.
Some petty complaints: I really did not need to hear the author’s girlfriend’s baby talk, and he could have omitted the sporadic political comments.
But I did love that they often stopped at used bookstores!
Some business owners are agreeable and even grateful for the corrections. Some are indifferent, but permit the mistakes to be fixed. Others stubbornly refuse to allow corrections. The guys take care to make any corrections as subtle as possible, and I share the author’s frustration with the woman who would “rather have a sign spelled incorrectly than a tacky-looking sign”. The guys sometimes make changes surreptitiously, without asking for permission first, and in one instance this gets them into pretty bad trouble.
Despite my whole-hearted endorsement of their mission, I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I expected to. There was something about the narrative tone that put me off. For one thing, the author writes florid prose - mostly to be funny, I realize, but I found it annoying. There is entirely too much stuff like: "I discussed my cross-country typo-hunting notion with barely anyone, cradling it close and secret lest the scrutiny of others burn mortal wounds into its gossamer body."
The book seemed a little disingenuous. For instance, I’m glad that the author included a discussion of descriptivism vs. prescriptivism, but I doubt that his opinions were actually formed by a particular experience on this trip. He makes a big deal about the Typo Hunt being a personal journey, his humble attempt to change the world, and yet he pauses in his pilgrimage to give interviews and to allow a TV camera crew to film him in action.
Some petty complaints: I really did not need to hear the author’s girlfriend’s baby talk, and he could have omitted the sporadic political comments.
But I did love that they often stopped at used bookstores!
March 4, 2011
So these two dorks decide to take a few months off work, go around the country in a big road trip, find all the publicly displayed typos, and correct as many as they can. While this indeed may be a fun thing to do, it’s not necessarily fun to read about. There’s very little justification for the publication of this book other than the authors recovering the cost of their trip. The “adventures” that they face, id est, getting various people to allow them to correct the typos, are really not much of an adventure. The self-mocking style of writing feels juvenile, and quickly becomes flat and loses the intended humorous effects. The few social/political/historical commentaries that they indulge in are irrelevant and uncalled for.
As for the common misspellings – it’s beyond me why an (allegedly) educated native speaker of English can’t tell the difference between your and you’re, or there and their and they’re. A daily torment for me is when I walk past the Urban Outfitters in my ‘hood and see a sign that says: MENS. Those who shop at Urban Outfitters can’t be bothered to worry about, or even notice, a missing apostrophe. They’re too cool. And that seems to be the problem. People are too cool to care about spelling and grammar and punctuation. Correct anyone who obviously doesn’t know the difference between your and you’re, and watch the angry reaction. The general response is something like: “We know, but we don’t care. We’re not anal like you.” They react angrily because they realize that you’re basically accusing them of being semiliterate. Well, sorry dude/dudette, you do come off as semiliterate. Whenever I’m reading some post or comment on the Web and see that the writer has written your instead of you’re, I stop reading. They can’t possibly be saying anything worth reading.
I’m not claiming any scientific rigor here, but from my own experience in Persian and from talking with a few continental Europeans, it seems to me that this shocking level of disregard for the rules of writing is an affliction of English speakers, among whom Americans are the primary offenders. In other places you’re inviting ridicule and scorn if you misspell a simple and common word. You will be called illiterate. Not here. Kids don’t care because their parents and peers are not much better either. Apparently teachers don’t care either. The kids graduate from high school and college just fine. Their bosses and colleagues don’t bother them about it either. It’s all good.
As for the common misspellings – it’s beyond me why an (allegedly) educated native speaker of English can’t tell the difference between your and you’re, or there and their and they’re. A daily torment for me is when I walk past the Urban Outfitters in my ‘hood and see a sign that says: MENS. Those who shop at Urban Outfitters can’t be bothered to worry about, or even notice, a missing apostrophe. They’re too cool. And that seems to be the problem. People are too cool to care about spelling and grammar and punctuation. Correct anyone who obviously doesn’t know the difference between your and you’re, and watch the angry reaction. The general response is something like: “We know, but we don’t care. We’re not anal like you.” They react angrily because they realize that you’re basically accusing them of being semiliterate. Well, sorry dude/dudette, you do come off as semiliterate. Whenever I’m reading some post or comment on the Web and see that the writer has written your instead of you’re, I stop reading. They can’t possibly be saying anything worth reading.
I’m not claiming any scientific rigor here, but from my own experience in Persian and from talking with a few continental Europeans, it seems to me that this shocking level of disregard for the rules of writing is an affliction of English speakers, among whom Americans are the primary offenders. In other places you’re inviting ridicule and scorn if you misspell a simple and common word. You will be called illiterate. Not here. Kids don’t care because their parents and peers are not much better either. Apparently teachers don’t care either. The kids graduate from high school and college just fine. Their bosses and colleagues don’t bother them about it either. It’s all good.
November 13, 2010
You should know that had I written my review before finishing the book, it might have been a '1-star', or maybe a '2-star' affair; which is to say, since I eventually awarded this book 3 stars, that it gets better so don't, when you inevitably want to, bail on this book.
The reason I feel so torn is not because the premise isn't an intriguing one (it is), nor is it because the author can't write (he can). No, it's because the author often writes too much. I think he was going for wry and dry, über-hyperbole (überperbole?) for effect, kind of an Americanized Lynn Truss, but he generally missed the mark. Deck's self-described style of "self-parodying pomposity" read like actual pomposity. His use of tortured imagery ("No one else has ever cut such a finely limned cookie on the dried batter of my heart."), combined with his obsession with grandiose phrasing and 50-cent words ("...had to worry about the diner staff concealing sputum in my meal..." really could have been just "spit in my lunch"), really left this reader thinking he must have written The Great Typo Hunt with his Roget's planted in his lap.
Those complaints aside, maybe Mr. Deck had his thesaurus planted, if not in his lap, firmly in his cheek. Eventually, the overwrought passages both grew on me and gave way to some interesting discussions of the bigger picture behind the portrait of a couple of typo hunters: the why of the quest, indie retail vs. Walmartization, prescriptive and descriptive approaches to grammar and punctuation, and the methods used in the U.S. to teach spelling and reading to name just a few. I found the expository passages much more compelling and less overworked than the descriptive bits. And when Deck dove into the history of dictionaries, I got all moist.
So, if, like me, your panties get all bunched up when you see an it's where an its should be, pick this little travelogue up and stick with it. And if you are reading this Mr. Deck, when you next pen a volume, be sure to follow Coco Chanel's advice: before you head out the door headed to your publisher's, take out one big word and you will have achieved the perfect balance in the look of your prose.
PS - I was wrong about the P's and Q's comment in my progress notes.
The reason I feel so torn is not because the premise isn't an intriguing one (it is), nor is it because the author can't write (he can). No, it's because the author often writes too much. I think he was going for wry and dry, über-hyperbole (überperbole?) for effect, kind of an Americanized Lynn Truss, but he generally missed the mark. Deck's self-described style of "self-parodying pomposity" read like actual pomposity. His use of tortured imagery ("No one else has ever cut such a finely limned cookie on the dried batter of my heart."), combined with his obsession with grandiose phrasing and 50-cent words ("...had to worry about the diner staff concealing sputum in my meal..." really could have been just "spit in my lunch"), really left this reader thinking he must have written The Great Typo Hunt with his Roget's planted in his lap.
Those complaints aside, maybe Mr. Deck had his thesaurus planted, if not in his lap, firmly in his cheek. Eventually, the overwrought passages both grew on me and gave way to some interesting discussions of the bigger picture behind the portrait of a couple of typo hunters: the why of the quest, indie retail vs. Walmartization, prescriptive and descriptive approaches to grammar and punctuation, and the methods used in the U.S. to teach spelling and reading to name just a few. I found the expository passages much more compelling and less overworked than the descriptive bits. And when Deck dove into the history of dictionaries, I got all moist.
So, if, like me, your panties get all bunched up when you see an it's where an its should be, pick this little travelogue up and stick with it. And if you are reading this Mr. Deck, when you next pen a volume, be sure to follow Coco Chanel's advice: before you head out the door headed to your publisher's, take out one big word and you will have achieved the perfect balance in the look of your prose.
PS - I was wrong about the P's and Q's comment in my progress notes.
July 10, 2012
As someone who now has a small gig proofreading for a small publisher, I cannot tell you how much I loved this book. If you are a self-proclaimed "grammar nazi," then this book is for you. If you've ever looked at a sign in public and shaken your head at a horrible misspelling, this book is for you. If you're one of those people that know the difference between its/it's, your/you're, to/too/two, etc, this book is for you.
Besides all the great typos Deck found (and trust me, there are some real doozies in here) and the fun travel adventures (who hasn't had some sort of disaster happen on a road trip?), there's quite a bit of philosophy here, too. For example, after the blog has been up and running for a little while, Deck and Benjamin land in Galveston, where they correct "Davy Jones Locker" with an apostrophe and an additional "s": "Davy Jones's Locker". No sooner do they post the pics of their success than the proverbial grammar poo hits the fan. Several comments show up blasting the pair for the additional "s", claiming that it's not necessary according to AP style, and that "everyone" knows that. Which made our heroes discuss which style, exactly, they were using when performing their feats of grammatical daring. (While Deck has done some AP-type editing, he prefers to refer back to his Chicago Manual of Style days.) As Deck himself points out, which style guideline you follow depends on what you do for a living: journalists refer to the AP Style Guide (obviously preferred by readers of his blog, too), while scholars would flip through an MLA Handbook. But if you're a medical writer, you're going to pull out your trustworthy APA Guide. And finally, if you're an author (fiction and non-fiction both), you're going to be intimately familiar with the tome that is The Chicago Manual of Style.
In the end, Deck puts it quite nicely. To all those that are concerned about the "right" or "wrong" way to correct an error, he says this: "The point is that any correction, regardless of the stylebook, is better than leaving the thing wrong."
It was also very interesting to read about people's reactions to the errors. At first, TEAL attempts a lot of "stealth" corrections, trying to leave the written world a better place but without taking any credit for it. Then Deck and his partners (especially Benjamin) start asking to change the errors, sometimes with great results, but more often finding attitude. Several retail-type employees simply refer to the fact that "they" didn't make the signs, and "they" don't have the authority to do anything about it. Other retail jockeys have an apathetic attitude of "whatever" - so the corrections happen. The authors also discovered that while people understood that there were errors in the signage, they were often loathe to have it "corrected" for fear it would look...well, "tacky" is a good word to use here, I think. Which really surprised our grammar sticklers, as they thought the tackier sign would be the one that was misspelled. To each his own, I suppose. But it did make for good conversations about how people take criticism, any criticism, even if it's not really directed at them.
As I said in the beginning of this review, I loved this book. Highly recommended to all. And people - let's watch the grammar out there!
Besides all the great typos Deck found (and trust me, there are some real doozies in here) and the fun travel adventures (who hasn't had some sort of disaster happen on a road trip?), there's quite a bit of philosophy here, too. For example, after the blog has been up and running for a little while, Deck and Benjamin land in Galveston, where they correct "Davy Jones Locker" with an apostrophe and an additional "s": "Davy Jones's Locker". No sooner do they post the pics of their success than the proverbial grammar poo hits the fan. Several comments show up blasting the pair for the additional "s", claiming that it's not necessary according to AP style, and that "everyone" knows that. Which made our heroes discuss which style, exactly, they were using when performing their feats of grammatical daring. (While Deck has done some AP-type editing, he prefers to refer back to his Chicago Manual of Style days.) As Deck himself points out, which style guideline you follow depends on what you do for a living: journalists refer to the AP Style Guide (obviously preferred by readers of his blog, too), while scholars would flip through an MLA Handbook. But if you're a medical writer, you're going to pull out your trustworthy APA Guide. And finally, if you're an author (fiction and non-fiction both), you're going to be intimately familiar with the tome that is The Chicago Manual of Style.
In the end, Deck puts it quite nicely. To all those that are concerned about the "right" or "wrong" way to correct an error, he says this: "The point is that any correction, regardless of the stylebook, is better than leaving the thing wrong."
It was also very interesting to read about people's reactions to the errors. At first, TEAL attempts a lot of "stealth" corrections, trying to leave the written world a better place but without taking any credit for it. Then Deck and his partners (especially Benjamin) start asking to change the errors, sometimes with great results, but more often finding attitude. Several retail-type employees simply refer to the fact that "they" didn't make the signs, and "they" don't have the authority to do anything about it. Other retail jockeys have an apathetic attitude of "whatever" - so the corrections happen. The authors also discovered that while people understood that there were errors in the signage, they were often loathe to have it "corrected" for fear it would look...well, "tacky" is a good word to use here, I think. Which really surprised our grammar sticklers, as they thought the tackier sign would be the one that was misspelled. To each his own, I suppose. But it did make for good conversations about how people take criticism, any criticism, even if it's not really directed at them.
As I said in the beginning of this review, I loved this book. Highly recommended to all. And people - let's watch the grammar out there!
April 24, 2014
I've seldom read so tiresome, annoying, trivial, and relentlessly unfunny a book. Being an editor myself, I thought this was a great idea for a book--traveling across the country fixing the kind of nearly ubiquitous errors that rile me to no end. I was wrong. It is indeed a bad idea for a book, but, as the book's main editor (who is thanked profusely in the "Acknowledgments") no doubt perceived, the originality of its conception and the youthfulness of its author attracted the media's attention and thus turned the book into a money maker. In fact, I suspect that editor had a hand in the actual writing of the book--a very heavy hand, it turns out, because it's weighted down with innumerable, unbearable "literary" turns of phrase transparently contrived to amuse the reader. For example, Chapter 7 begins:
"I awoke to a joyous morning in an Alabama hotel room, finding that my battered eye had convalesced enough to actually permit vision. Markers and pens and elixir of correction are important, but oh how vital to have the most basic of typo-hunting tools, the ones physically yoked to your head, in good working order."
The image of having one's eyes "yoked" to one's head is funny, but no doubt not in the way the writer intended. And not only "yoked" but "physically yoked"! The writer is so unaware that he's creating a metaphor that he betrays his ignorance by insisting that the eyes are indeed "physically" yoked to one's head. With what--"physical twine"? And are we really to be amused by the phrase "convalesced enough to actually permit vision," rather than, say, "healed enough so that I could see"? Any editor with a feeling for naturalness of style would have recoiled at this passage, but I suspect the editor had something to do with writing it.
And how about this opening, to Chapter 12: "Josh cracked San Francisco open like a mussel, seeking the sweet creature within"? First of all, you don't "crack" open a mussel, you cook it until it opens; second, likening an entire city to a mussel is so goofy (and is obviously a turn on the cliche, "the world is your oyster") it's embarrassing; and third, the effect of the simile--to emphasize the connection of San Francisco and good seafood--is trite, trite, trite. Again, I suspect the editor encouraged this when she should have rapped the writer's knuckles with a ruler (and if the editor had edited this comment she would have changed "ruler" to "ferule" to give it that humorously literary, in-joke sort of style).
Add to this the writer's endlessly repetitive and completely unconvincing relevations about the importance of his self-assigned mission and his trivial and pointless ruminations on politics and society and this book quickly becomes intolerable.
Finally, in the first edition of the book (in hardcover), the writer betrays his ignorance of the rules governing the placement of the period and comma in relationship to quotation marks. There are three "typos" related to this on pages 56-57. I guess the writer has a beam "yoked" to his own eye. And while I'm toying with Biblical allusions--the writer should have "unyoked" his own eye and cast it aside rather than have departed on his quest to begin with.
"I awoke to a joyous morning in an Alabama hotel room, finding that my battered eye had convalesced enough to actually permit vision. Markers and pens and elixir of correction are important, but oh how vital to have the most basic of typo-hunting tools, the ones physically yoked to your head, in good working order."
The image of having one's eyes "yoked" to one's head is funny, but no doubt not in the way the writer intended. And not only "yoked" but "physically yoked"! The writer is so unaware that he's creating a metaphor that he betrays his ignorance by insisting that the eyes are indeed "physically" yoked to one's head. With what--"physical twine"? And are we really to be amused by the phrase "convalesced enough to actually permit vision," rather than, say, "healed enough so that I could see"? Any editor with a feeling for naturalness of style would have recoiled at this passage, but I suspect the editor had something to do with writing it.
And how about this opening, to Chapter 12: "Josh cracked San Francisco open like a mussel, seeking the sweet creature within"? First of all, you don't "crack" open a mussel, you cook it until it opens; second, likening an entire city to a mussel is so goofy (and is obviously a turn on the cliche, "the world is your oyster") it's embarrassing; and third, the effect of the simile--to emphasize the connection of San Francisco and good seafood--is trite, trite, trite. Again, I suspect the editor encouraged this when she should have rapped the writer's knuckles with a ruler (and if the editor had edited this comment she would have changed "ruler" to "ferule" to give it that humorously literary, in-joke sort of style).
Add to this the writer's endlessly repetitive and completely unconvincing relevations about the importance of his self-assigned mission and his trivial and pointless ruminations on politics and society and this book quickly becomes intolerable.
Finally, in the first edition of the book (in hardcover), the writer betrays his ignorance of the rules governing the placement of the period and comma in relationship to quotation marks. There are three "typos" related to this on pages 56-57. I guess the writer has a beam "yoked" to his own eye. And while I'm toying with Biblical allusions--the writer should have "unyoked" his own eye and cast it aside rather than have departed on his quest to begin with.
March 23, 2011
I rather enjoyed this story. It takes a few not-so-recent college graduates on a journey of exploration...to see the country and to fix grammatical and spelling errors where they find them. I love that it ends up being a journey of self-discovery as well as a lesson in humility. My one complaint is that the authors use too many "50-cent" words. They caution the reader to self-edit and review. I think they should have edited their own book a bit more to use less flowery language (see the list of thirty words below for an example.)
I found humor in the fact that Jeff Deck is very proud of his sci-fi and Dungeons and Dragons geekiness. I like that he pays homage to Shel Silverstein in a very subtle way: "...where the sidewalk truly ends..." (p. 152) And I love that he and his girlfriend "play a rousing game of Phase 10" (I can only assume that I should take that literally and that it is not a sexual innuendo.) Finally, I like that we are given a short history lesson about dictionaries as well as the evolution of grammar and the English language. I suppose I would describe myself as a Grammar Hawk, but I think I can appreciate the que sera sera attitude of the Grammar Hippie too.
interesting quotes:
"...not to teach men how they should think, but relate how they have hitherto expressed their thoughts." (p. 152)
"...the path you're on is the path you need to find." (p. 172)
"I would rather have a sign spelled incorrectly than a tacky-looking sign." (p. 178)
new words: ken, rapacious, orthographic, simulacra/simulacrum, eldritch, panoply, tympanum, garrulous, pernicious, calumnies, defenestrating, thaumaturgy, recondite, doughty, insensate, perambulation, prescriptivist, mountebank, anthroponomastics, magniloquent, didacts, koan, polymathic, carom, multifarious, cacography, neodymium, crenellation, chimerical (not all of these were unknown to me, but I included all the words I found to be overly bombastic...or should I say pretentious?)
I found humor in the fact that Jeff Deck is very proud of his sci-fi and Dungeons and Dragons geekiness. I like that he pays homage to Shel Silverstein in a very subtle way: "...where the sidewalk truly ends..." (p. 152) And I love that he and his girlfriend "play a rousing game of Phase 10" (I can only assume that I should take that literally and that it is not a sexual innuendo.) Finally, I like that we are given a short history lesson about dictionaries as well as the evolution of grammar and the English language. I suppose I would describe myself as a Grammar Hawk, but I think I can appreciate the que sera sera attitude of the Grammar Hippie too.
interesting quotes:
"...not to teach men how they should think, but relate how they have hitherto expressed their thoughts." (p. 152)
"...the path you're on is the path you need to find." (p. 172)
"I would rather have a sign spelled incorrectly than a tacky-looking sign." (p. 178)
new words: ken, rapacious, orthographic, simulacra/simulacrum, eldritch, panoply, tympanum, garrulous, pernicious, calumnies, defenestrating, thaumaturgy, recondite, doughty, insensate, perambulation, prescriptivist, mountebank, anthroponomastics, magniloquent, didacts, koan, polymathic, carom, multifarious, cacography, neodymium, crenellation, chimerical (not all of these were unknown to me, but I included all the words I found to be overly bombastic...or should I say pretentious?)
February 1, 2015
I'm one of those people who spots typos everywhere - restaurant menus, shop signs, etc. - and I promise I'm not trying. So I looked forward to The Great Typo Hunt as a quick read. A few pages in, though, I wasn't sure I'd make it through the first chapter, let alone the whole book. Deck is a guy who won't use one word when he might use three, and those three are words that are apt to come up on someone's SAT vocab study list. Every few paragraphs, I'd read a sentence aloud to encourage groaning commiseration from my husband, but I soldiered on, hoping things would mellow out a bit as the guys finally hit the road. And it did, to some degree. The chapter or two when Deck would discuss issues including how spelling is taught in American schools, or how spelling does or does not relate to spoken language and how it all became codified through history, are pleasant to read - he sticks to the business and relates information in a friendly, clear way. But when back to his own travels - and worst, when writing about his girlfriend, alluding to the fact that they have sex, and insinuating that she only talks in baby-talk and pet names - his self-mythologizing over-writing is just way too much to take.
November 17, 2014
74th book read in 2014.
Number 408 out of 417 on my all time book list.
Follow the link below to see my video review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNFg7...
Number 408 out of 417 on my all time book list.
Follow the link below to see my video review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNFg7...
December 29, 2018
Jeff, an editor, decided that he would do some travelling around the US in 2008, in order to find and fix (whether subversively himself, or by asking) typos/errors on signs. He brought along friends with him as he made his way around the perimeter of the US for almost three months. He was armed with his Typo Correction Kit that he assembled himself and found that while some people were receptive to making the changes, others weren’t. In fact, by the time he got home again, he discovered that he was in some trouble for fixing one of the signs himself!
I really enjoyed this! There was some humour – I loved the “elixir of correction” (so as not to use a brand name) that he carried with him. There is an appendix at the end explaining some of the common errors. Jeff had a blog he kept going throughout his travels, but I’m sad to see that it no longer exists. There are some photos included interspersed throughout the book – photos of some before and after errors.
I really enjoyed this! There was some humour – I loved the “elixir of correction” (so as not to use a brand name) that he carried with him. There is an appendix at the end explaining some of the common errors. Jeff had a blog he kept going throughout his travels, but I’m sad to see that it no longer exists. There are some photos included interspersed throughout the book – photos of some before and after errors.
November 17, 2024
2.75. I was a bit disappointed in the book. I would have enjoyed more examples of signs, letters, etc. with typographic errors rather than the somewhat long-winded tale of their cross-country travels.
January 29, 2011
I remember reading about "the great typo hunt" in the papers—which are, of course, a valuable source of lesser typos. I’m not particularly good at spotting errors in casual writing, or at spelling either, though I do know the rules and can usually apply them with a little help from my computer. So I reserve a special sympathy for those whose signage lacks accuracy. Also, I like rebelling against a teacher mother and a husband who’s very detail-oriented. “Play In Doors or Out” evokes quiet smiles from me and thoughts of what type of story a child playing in a door might one day produce, but it rarely causes pain. Still, with a book like The Great Typo Hunt those quiet smiles might be quickly overtaken by laughing out loud. Jeff Deck and his fellow typo-hunters certainly found a fun and intriguing collection, and tell the tale quite delightfully, with all the right accompaniment of hilarious images and self-doubt—do we need rules, who sets the rules, why are the rules how they are, and who can learn them anyway? (In fact, the book even ends with a pretty clear description of the rules—if only I’d been taught them as a kid, instead of picking them up from sitting in classes where my own kids were learning—bad habits are so hard to lose.)
Jeff Deck set off on a trip around the States to correct typos, using his natural skills to better the world of American signs, and communicating with a wealth of fascinating people on the way. Benjamin D. Herson accompanied him on part of his journey, most significantly on the part that garnered the greatest newspaper attention. And I found myself with vague memories of the story evolving into a court case at some point, instead of an “isn’t this interesting” segment at the end of the news. Meanwhile readers share the journey, enjoying the triumph of an occasional “Yes, please fix it,” the adrenalin rush of the stealth correction, and the agony of those mistakes yet left unmended, still tormenting passers-by.
The story is told with amusing candor in non-threatening tone with educational overtones, and lots to think about. It’s truly a delight, zany in a fine intellectual way, poignant in an oh-what-a-crazy-world-we-live-in kind of way, and thought-provoking too—a pleasingly descriptive trip across and around the States as well as an investigation into people, defensiveness, education and communication. When this book comes out in paperback I shall buy my own copy. Meanwhile I’ll thank a friend for lending her hardback to me, and I’ll thank my computer for spell-check and grammar-check.
Disclosure: I borrowed this book from a friend who bought it from a store where one of the authors works. Perhaps I’ll meet him one day.
Jeff Deck set off on a trip around the States to correct typos, using his natural skills to better the world of American signs, and communicating with a wealth of fascinating people on the way. Benjamin D. Herson accompanied him on part of his journey, most significantly on the part that garnered the greatest newspaper attention. And I found myself with vague memories of the story evolving into a court case at some point, instead of an “isn’t this interesting” segment at the end of the news. Meanwhile readers share the journey, enjoying the triumph of an occasional “Yes, please fix it,” the adrenalin rush of the stealth correction, and the agony of those mistakes yet left unmended, still tormenting passers-by.
The story is told with amusing candor in non-threatening tone with educational overtones, and lots to think about. It’s truly a delight, zany in a fine intellectual way, poignant in an oh-what-a-crazy-world-we-live-in kind of way, and thought-provoking too—a pleasingly descriptive trip across and around the States as well as an investigation into people, defensiveness, education and communication. When this book comes out in paperback I shall buy my own copy. Meanwhile I’ll thank a friend for lending her hardback to me, and I’ll thank my computer for spell-check and grammar-check.
Disclosure: I borrowed this book from a friend who bought it from a store where one of the authors works. Perhaps I’ll meet him one day.
April 15, 2015
Anyone who enjoys the English language will likely enjoy this book. What starts out as a light-hearted, jovial adventure turns into a deeper awareness of human nature, our use of language and the necessarily fluid nature a living language must adopt. (Like that omitted Oxford comma. Sorry, folks, but I'm an AP girl.)
As expected, Deck's writing is impeccable and it was delightful to read such technically well-crafted prose. After finishing the book, I was curious as to whether that second tour occurred and was happy to find that TEAL's website re-emerged post-NP gag order. Although it is unfortunate that I keep transposing the website's URL to greatpottyhunt out of my peripheral vision. Perhaps, in a way, it's a fitting tribute to how easily typos are missed and/or created by simply glancing at something rather than taking the time to fully process the world around us.
As expected, Deck's writing is impeccable and it was delightful to read such technically well-crafted prose. After finishing the book, I was curious as to whether that second tour occurred and was happy to find that TEAL's website re-emerged post-NP gag order. Although it is unfortunate that I keep transposing the website's URL to greatpottyhunt out of my peripheral vision. Perhaps, in a way, it's a fitting tribute to how easily typos are missed and/or created by simply glancing at something rather than taking the time to fully process the world around us.
October 12, 2011
I laughed out loud through parts of this fun, quirky book, not something I usually do. The idea behind the story is incredibly simple: take a road trip around the country correcting typos in public places. But Deck draws you into the story, with cliffhangers at nearly every chapter end. In the prefaces to each chapter he imagines himself a grammar superhero, fighting the dark powers of ignorance and defensiveness. He questions why he is doing this, and ends up on all kinds of interesting tangents about language, history and life in modern America. Lovers of language and anyone who has ever been outraged by an improperly placed apostrophe will enjoy this.
August 15, 2020
This book was right up my alley because typos are one of my biggest pet peeves. It doesn’t help that they seem to stand out in bright neon colors to me. If there is a typo in some text, my eye will be immediately drawn to it. This is certainly helpful as an editor, but it happens in everyday life too. I loved Jeff Deck’s idea from the get go. I wish I had known about his journey back in 2008 so I could have followed along. He gets a bit too philosophical in the book itself and so it is longer than it needed to be, hence four instead of five stars. It is good to know that there are others out there who care about spelling and grammar as much as I do.
February 10, 2011
Fixing grammar AND referencing The Lord of the Rings? I think I've found my intellectual soulmate!
Ok, now that I've finished the book... it is amazing. I love the way Deck analyzes not only his trip, but the value of language, the changes over time and culture, and the value of education. It's SUCH an informative and inspiring read.
Count me in as a member of TEAL!
Ok, now that I've finished the book... it is amazing. I love the way Deck analyzes not only his trip, but the value of language, the changes over time and culture, and the value of education. It's SUCH an informative and inspiring read.
Count me in as a member of TEAL!
April 26, 2018
I would give this more stars if I could! I learned of Jeff Deck and his "mission" only recently when I found an old Reader's Digest with a bookmark in it. I had marked a story about the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL) and so began my love for TEAL. First, I checked out Face Book and found a TEAL page but it seemed that it had not been updated in awhile. Then I spotted this book! Hooray! A few pennies on amazon and it was on its way. I am one of those readers whose curse/blessing is that typos jump out at me EVERYWHERE! I have had to give up on books that are so typo/error filled that they become unreadable for me...yes, yes, I know what the author MEANS but I can hardly follow the story when I am pulled up short by the typos. When this book arrived, I put everything aside and began my journey with Jeff and Benjamin! I must admit to being on the lookout for typos but found NONE and they won my heart with their story. I have purchased more for some friends who can appreciate the hunt. Thank you for one of the most enjoyable reads I have ever come across.
January 10, 2020
The road trip in this book takes place in 2008, and in the current climate (2020) its premise seems already almost impossibly quaint. But I think the friendship between the two authors is really the heart of this story, so whether you find them likeable will determine your appreciation of the book.
October 13, 2022
An interesting story with some funny moments along the way! I enjoyed learning more about some grammar rules the English language follows, but overall the book just took a long time for me to get through. From the middle on I was just reading it to find out what happened at the end with their illegal activities! Definitely just an “okay” book for me.
July 29, 2024
“Well jab me with an apostrophe and call me a contraction.” Loved this book!
August 23, 2010
When I was about Jeff Deck's age, I could relate to being to at loose ends with my career and my life. I wish I'd had the idea that Deck had — to take a trip around the United States finding and correcting typos in public signage, and to blog about it along the way in hopes of drawing attention to the cause. (I had the chops, churlishness and willingness, but I spent a year working in Yellowstone instead.)
Deck's idea was a bit of an ill-defined monkeyshine at the time, with some predictably ill-advised results. But as the miles rolled behind them, it evolved in ways he couldn't possibly foresee into the mature and relevant language debate that fueled "The Great Typo Hunt," his book with road-buddy, muse and devil's advocate, Benjamin Herson.
That latter quality is what elevates the book above a road-buddy tale along snark-infested waters. Both are off-the-charts smart: Deck is a bit of a wiseass, with a obnoxiously showoffy vocabulary (he reminds me of me, which is bad). Herson is the more direct, and even occasionally rude, member of the duo. But he's also an invaluable counterweight to the moments when Deck is caught drifting off thematic course.
But the two quickly embrace the spirit of the quest as their encounters with typo-makers and subsequent long road-hours give them ample time to reflect on the changing nature of language and how people relate to both language and change. They realize that for all the objective errors they identify, other noncomformities they encounter arise out of honest but differing interpretations of the same shared language. As we all come to realize, there's really a lot that is neither strictly "right" or "wrong" when it comes to differences of view on language. (Although many of the book's best passages come from typo-makers who try to defend the indefensible out of nothing more than sheer knee-jerk defensiveness. As one woman memorably says: "I would rather have a sign spelled incorrectly than a tacky-looking sign." Yikes. That's beyond chutzpah and somewhere closer to chutzpidity.)
Speaking of crossing the chutzpah/chutzpidity divide, it should be noted that the episode that brought Deck and Herson equal parts fame and infamy involved the defacing of a historic National Park Service sign at the Grand Canyon. The pair were prosecuted and restitution was made. But the much-publicized incident — a stupid act by any measure — shouldn't leave readers with the idea that Deck and Herson didn't learn anything from it. It may help to learn that the duo gave up "stealth corrections" long before they learned they were wanted men. By that time, they had fully embraced the idea of being aboveboard in their dealings — not just because it was the right thing to do, but because they wanted to use each encounter with a typo-maker as a mutually educational moment.)
It's their willingness to learn, and their earnestness in wanting to share what they learn, that lifts this lark into something of lasting value. By the time the 2 1/2-month adventure ends, one senses that they are changed men, and wiser and more mature for their openness to change. By book's end, they decide to take their mission to a second level, planning a second nationwide road trip around the desire to educate using the Direct Instruction method.
The lesson: One need be neither a staunch prescriptivist (there is one standard, it is not to be challenged, and it rarely acknowledges change) or a finger-to-the-wind descriptivist (languages changes all the time, man, and we shouldn't fight it and just let it be what it wants to be) when it comes to language. There is a balance between order and evolution, and the end of "The Great Typo Hunt" shows our intrepid adventurers closing in on it. All in the course of an entertaining read, it should be said.
The journey in "The Great Typo Hunt" is one that, vicariously taken, leaves us just as enriched and enlightened. And likely with more than an eagle eye for typos in the posters, store signs and restaurant menus we come across in our daily journeys. Which is never a bad thing ... as long as you ask permission before busting out your own "elixir of correction."
All this is the long way of saying that "The Great Typo Hunt," while a bit windy at times, is well worth the time of anybody with love for and curiosity about, the wonderful, horrible, delightful, maddening English language.
Deck's idea was a bit of an ill-defined monkeyshine at the time, with some predictably ill-advised results. But as the miles rolled behind them, it evolved in ways he couldn't possibly foresee into the mature and relevant language debate that fueled "The Great Typo Hunt," his book with road-buddy, muse and devil's advocate, Benjamin Herson.
That latter quality is what elevates the book above a road-buddy tale along snark-infested waters. Both are off-the-charts smart: Deck is a bit of a wiseass, with a obnoxiously showoffy vocabulary (he reminds me of me, which is bad). Herson is the more direct, and even occasionally rude, member of the duo. But he's also an invaluable counterweight to the moments when Deck is caught drifting off thematic course.
But the two quickly embrace the spirit of the quest as their encounters with typo-makers and subsequent long road-hours give them ample time to reflect on the changing nature of language and how people relate to both language and change. They realize that for all the objective errors they identify, other noncomformities they encounter arise out of honest but differing interpretations of the same shared language. As we all come to realize, there's really a lot that is neither strictly "right" or "wrong" when it comes to differences of view on language. (Although many of the book's best passages come from typo-makers who try to defend the indefensible out of nothing more than sheer knee-jerk defensiveness. As one woman memorably says: "I would rather have a sign spelled incorrectly than a tacky-looking sign." Yikes. That's beyond chutzpah and somewhere closer to chutzpidity.)
Speaking of crossing the chutzpah/chutzpidity divide, it should be noted that the episode that brought Deck and Herson equal parts fame and infamy involved the defacing of a historic National Park Service sign at the Grand Canyon. The pair were prosecuted and restitution was made. But the much-publicized incident — a stupid act by any measure — shouldn't leave readers with the idea that Deck and Herson didn't learn anything from it. It may help to learn that the duo gave up "stealth corrections" long before they learned they were wanted men. By that time, they had fully embraced the idea of being aboveboard in their dealings — not just because it was the right thing to do, but because they wanted to use each encounter with a typo-maker as a mutually educational moment.)
It's their willingness to learn, and their earnestness in wanting to share what they learn, that lifts this lark into something of lasting value. By the time the 2 1/2-month adventure ends, one senses that they are changed men, and wiser and more mature for their openness to change. By book's end, they decide to take their mission to a second level, planning a second nationwide road trip around the desire to educate using the Direct Instruction method.
The lesson: One need be neither a staunch prescriptivist (there is one standard, it is not to be challenged, and it rarely acknowledges change) or a finger-to-the-wind descriptivist (languages changes all the time, man, and we shouldn't fight it and just let it be what it wants to be) when it comes to language. There is a balance between order and evolution, and the end of "The Great Typo Hunt" shows our intrepid adventurers closing in on it. All in the course of an entertaining read, it should be said.
The journey in "The Great Typo Hunt" is one that, vicariously taken, leaves us just as enriched and enlightened. And likely with more than an eagle eye for typos in the posters, store signs and restaurant menus we come across in our daily journeys. Which is never a bad thing ... as long as you ask permission before busting out your own "elixir of correction."
All this is the long way of saying that "The Great Typo Hunt," while a bit windy at times, is well worth the time of anybody with love for and curiosity about, the wonderful, horrible, delightful, maddening English language.
November 14, 2010
Loved this book, which may be because I spend a lot of time at work going back and forth with our legal department on where commas should be placed in a sentence!
The language reminded me a lot of the show "Big Bang Theory" (which I love!) because the authors use a very large vocabulary to get across a very specific point, even though one or two words could have been a good enough. But, it made me think!
Here's a glimpse of what you're in for...a sampling of my favorite quotes from this book:
When the author decided to do a typo hunt - "A vision descended upon me. In it, I saw myself armed with wite-out and black marker, waging a compaign of holy destruction on spelling and grammatical mistakes."
On decided what punctuation to use in a sign that read "CAUTION: DO NOT TOUCH VERY HOT!" - "...any one of several different marks after TOUCH would fill the bill. Traditional grammar might favor a colon: the directive DO NOT TOUCH is followed by a clarification of why touching is not desirable, much as this very clause clarifies why a colon would work in the sign. Given that there's already a colon after CAUTION, though, a dash might be better - to emphasize the very hotness! A period or exclamation point would break the two parts into separate sentences, though VERY HOT doesn't make for much of a sentence, lacking both a subject and verb. Personally, I could find room in my heart for a semicolon, that old benchwarmer of the punctuative ball club, or even a comma. Just to have something there, to plug the yawning absence that currently confused the warning."
On the number of errors within the various news coverage the authors' typo hunt received: "We veer painfully close to the aching borderlands of irony, though, when there are errors in stories about guys fixing errors. Coverage of our mission included a bushel of outright mistakes, all of which could have easily been avoided by taking a second glance at the TEAL website. These weren't obscure bits of arcana, just the answers to basic questions: What does TEAL stand for? What are our names? Where did the trip start? What did I say? ... We were only some dudes driving around with markers. It's not like they screwed up reportage on an Iraq offensive, so who cares about whether they got our little story right? But every word in a news story presumably rests on research; every dollop of delicious factual nougat has supposedly been vetted by somebody. The wide spread occurrence of errors about our trip gets a body wondering...what other stories have been misreported?"
On how to proofread and why it's important: "It's rude not to proofread...The author who doesn't proofread may leave trouble behind for his readers. They're now forced into exerting the extra effort to decipher what the author had meant. Then again, many readers won't bother. Benjamin was right that the author didn't automatically deserve to be understood. What readers deserve, though, is that the author present his message with the greatest possible clarity...Our mission wasn't about the mere typos, those little errors. Our message surpassed typos on its way to the greater realm of clarity. At some point an English teacher got through to me that I shouldn't just write a paper and turn it in, that I should take the time to edit it. Maybe even edit it again. The first draft of writing was only about getting it down from your head and onto the page. The editing stage was where you made it work: refined what you were trying to say, figured out how to say it better, and polished it to maximum effect."
Describing the typos in court documents for 'United States of America vs. Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson' (the case brought against the authors for correcting 2 typos on a historical sign at the Grand Canyon...they didn't know it was a historical sign though...that little mistake ended up costing them about 10 grand!):
- criminal statues (instead of statutes)
- 'The website describes the mission of it's group' (it's instead of its)
- Silver Springs, Maryland (instead of Silver Spring, Maryland)
- resitution (instead of restitution)
- vandlaizing (instead of vandalizing)
The language reminded me a lot of the show "Big Bang Theory" (which I love!) because the authors use a very large vocabulary to get across a very specific point, even though one or two words could have been a good enough. But, it made me think!
Here's a glimpse of what you're in for...a sampling of my favorite quotes from this book:
When the author decided to do a typo hunt - "A vision descended upon me. In it, I saw myself armed with wite-out and black marker, waging a compaign of holy destruction on spelling and grammatical mistakes."
On decided what punctuation to use in a sign that read "CAUTION: DO NOT TOUCH VERY HOT!" - "...any one of several different marks after TOUCH would fill the bill. Traditional grammar might favor a colon: the directive DO NOT TOUCH is followed by a clarification of why touching is not desirable, much as this very clause clarifies why a colon would work in the sign. Given that there's already a colon after CAUTION, though, a dash might be better - to emphasize the very hotness! A period or exclamation point would break the two parts into separate sentences, though VERY HOT doesn't make for much of a sentence, lacking both a subject and verb. Personally, I could find room in my heart for a semicolon, that old benchwarmer of the punctuative ball club, or even a comma. Just to have something there, to plug the yawning absence that currently confused the warning."
On the number of errors within the various news coverage the authors' typo hunt received: "We veer painfully close to the aching borderlands of irony, though, when there are errors in stories about guys fixing errors. Coverage of our mission included a bushel of outright mistakes, all of which could have easily been avoided by taking a second glance at the TEAL website. These weren't obscure bits of arcana, just the answers to basic questions: What does TEAL stand for? What are our names? Where did the trip start? What did I say? ... We were only some dudes driving around with markers. It's not like they screwed up reportage on an Iraq offensive, so who cares about whether they got our little story right? But every word in a news story presumably rests on research; every dollop of delicious factual nougat has supposedly been vetted by somebody. The wide spread occurrence of errors about our trip gets a body wondering...what other stories have been misreported?"
On how to proofread and why it's important: "It's rude not to proofread...The author who doesn't proofread may leave trouble behind for his readers. They're now forced into exerting the extra effort to decipher what the author had meant. Then again, many readers won't bother. Benjamin was right that the author didn't automatically deserve to be understood. What readers deserve, though, is that the author present his message with the greatest possible clarity...Our mission wasn't about the mere typos, those little errors. Our message surpassed typos on its way to the greater realm of clarity. At some point an English teacher got through to me that I shouldn't just write a paper and turn it in, that I should take the time to edit it. Maybe even edit it again. The first draft of writing was only about getting it down from your head and onto the page. The editing stage was where you made it work: refined what you were trying to say, figured out how to say it better, and polished it to maximum effect."
Describing the typos in court documents for 'United States of America vs. Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson' (the case brought against the authors for correcting 2 typos on a historical sign at the Grand Canyon...they didn't know it was a historical sign though...that little mistake ended up costing them about 10 grand!):
- criminal statues (instead of statutes)
- 'The website describes the mission of it's group' (it's instead of its)
- Silver Springs, Maryland (instead of Silver Spring, Maryland)
- resitution (instead of restitution)
- vandlaizing (instead of vandalizing)
April 11, 2019
I chose this book because I did not like my first book, so I looked around and found this book and it looked interesting.
This book is about two kids, Jeff Deck and Benjamin D Herson, who decided to start on a two and a half month trek to fix all of the grammatical errors they can find. They came up with this idea when Deck saw a "No tresspassing" sign along the side of a road. They used pens, markers, pencils, colored pencils, paint, and much more to fix the errors on the signs everywhere. However, they were not able to get every sign to fix because some of them are out of their reach, sometimes quite literally. Sometimes, they went over the line, like when they "fixed" a federal sign at the Grand Canyon. They called themselves The Typo Eradication Advancement League. Jeff was an editor before he began the typo hunt, he had been noticing spelling and grammar errors for an extremely long time, and he wanted to try to fix them. The two went around the country, and were able to fix over 400 grammar and spelling errors. The two friends continued to watch out for spelling errors in their area and books around them, even after their Great Typo Hunt ended.
What I think worked well in this book was the setting changes. There was constantly a different setting throughout the book, because they are travelling. I think having many different settings is a good thing because it makes it so that there will always be different challenges that the two friends will have to overcome on their Great Typo Hunt, and it makes me feel as if I am travelling with them.
What I think could have been better is the repetitiveness. Throughout the book, although there is different settings, the friends are doing a lot of the same exact things that they have been doing for so long, just finding the error, contacting the company responsible, and fixing it if necessary. I think that there could have been another event in the book to make the book a bit more interesting, because at some points it was hard to read because it was so repetitive. I got bored of reading it sometimes because the characters in the story were doing a lot of the same things.
This book is about two kids, Jeff Deck and Benjamin D Herson, who decided to start on a two and a half month trek to fix all of the grammatical errors they can find. They came up with this idea when Deck saw a "No tresspassing" sign along the side of a road. They used pens, markers, pencils, colored pencils, paint, and much more to fix the errors on the signs everywhere. However, they were not able to get every sign to fix because some of them are out of their reach, sometimes quite literally. Sometimes, they went over the line, like when they "fixed" a federal sign at the Grand Canyon. They called themselves The Typo Eradication Advancement League. Jeff was an editor before he began the typo hunt, he had been noticing spelling and grammar errors for an extremely long time, and he wanted to try to fix them. The two went around the country, and were able to fix over 400 grammar and spelling errors. The two friends continued to watch out for spelling errors in their area and books around them, even after their Great Typo Hunt ended.
What I think worked well in this book was the setting changes. There was constantly a different setting throughout the book, because they are travelling. I think having many different settings is a good thing because it makes it so that there will always be different challenges that the two friends will have to overcome on their Great Typo Hunt, and it makes me feel as if I am travelling with them.
What I think could have been better is the repetitiveness. Throughout the book, although there is different settings, the friends are doing a lot of the same exact things that they have been doing for so long, just finding the error, contacting the company responsible, and fixing it if necessary. I think that there could have been another event in the book to make the book a bit more interesting, because at some points it was hard to read because it was so repetitive. I got bored of reading it sometimes because the characters in the story were doing a lot of the same things.
December 27, 2010
This is a very interesting take on language and the future of it. Though part of it felt too much like name-dropping (is it really important that we know he's reading Red Mars at the end of the trip?) and fell into some issues that could have been cleared with stylistic editing, the rest of it was pointed and very good. It definitely gave me lots to think about and I will probably go back through this book later enjoying many of the characters and plots again.
Is this book for you? Well, the premise is interesting. What happens when an editor goes on a road trip with the sole purpose of correcting the typos found on signs? What goes on through his (in this case) mind and how do the folks around him affect his thinking? What does this mean about America in general and our fascination with words?
Where the book succeeds is where it focuses on these questions and especially when it starts to go into the abstractions that alter the definitions of Jeff Deck's course of action. He starts with an open plan and refines it with very carefully considered reasoning. We hear about the history of editing and the English language (though it is only a snippet) and how this affects his own thinking about what he does.
Demonizing a lot of the folks, though, is what occurred throughout many of the passages, especially those which the typo could not be corrected. There are too many times, especially near the end, where Deck makes himself out to be the source of all that is good and right in the world of language - even as he denies it - and the hostile shopkeeper as the agent of evil, encouraging ignorance over and over. Whether this was done to enhance conflict or just subconsciously is beside the point. This good vs. evil is exactly what the book did not need. The moralizing of editing is what makes the, as he terms them, Grammar Hawks [all errors in speech need to be corrected because they aren't right] become Grammar Hawks in the first place. Sticking with a more sympathetic portrait of these people would have truly emphasized his middle-of-the-grammar-spectrum (the other end being the Grammar Hippies) that he wanted to promote.
In the end, there are many excellent points in this book that should be discussed and I definitely think it should be read in all high school English/Literature classes for the power of editing.
Is this book for you? Well, the premise is interesting. What happens when an editor goes on a road trip with the sole purpose of correcting the typos found on signs? What goes on through his (in this case) mind and how do the folks around him affect his thinking? What does this mean about America in general and our fascination with words?
Where the book succeeds is where it focuses on these questions and especially when it starts to go into the abstractions that alter the definitions of Jeff Deck's course of action. He starts with an open plan and refines it with very carefully considered reasoning. We hear about the history of editing and the English language (though it is only a snippet) and how this affects his own thinking about what he does.
Demonizing a lot of the folks, though, is what occurred throughout many of the passages, especially those which the typo could not be corrected. There are too many times, especially near the end, where Deck makes himself out to be the source of all that is good and right in the world of language - even as he denies it - and the hostile shopkeeper as the agent of evil, encouraging ignorance over and over. Whether this was done to enhance conflict or just subconsciously is beside the point. This good vs. evil is exactly what the book did not need. The moralizing of editing is what makes the, as he terms them, Grammar Hawks [all errors in speech need to be corrected because they aren't right] become Grammar Hawks in the first place. Sticking with a more sympathetic portrait of these people would have truly emphasized his middle-of-the-grammar-spectrum (the other end being the Grammar Hippies) that he wanted to promote.
In the end, there are many excellent points in this book that should be discussed and I definitely think it should be read in all high school English/Literature classes for the power of editing.
April 28, 2013
After his five-year college reunion, editor and writer Deck was left looking for a last road trip that he could infuse with meaning. Hitting upon the idea of correcting “typos” (read: mistakes based on poor literacy skills) found in public signs, he and a friend formed the somewhat tongue-in-cheek Typo Eradication Advancement League and started on their quest, armed with Sharpies and correction fluid. It’s all fun and games until the friends make the naïve mistake of correcting a sign on public land, and they are accused of vandalism.
This was a fun read; quirky adventure stories with a hook more or less write themselves. But while Deck (who is the sole narrator) is an engaging, affable voice, I was a little put off by his conceptualization of how typos come about, which is arrestingly naïve: deep into his quest, he notes “we thought we saw evidence that these [grammatical and spelling] essentials weren’t being fully acquired by the populace.” This is such a wishy-washy cop-out with so many qualifiers – it’s obvious Deck doesn’t want to come off as an educated elitist – that it borders on self-parody. The plain fact is that these are not “typos” at all, but errors made by a public too stupid to know how to study or read and too proud of ignorance to care. But Deck doesn’t want to admit that, so he comes across to me as spineless. It isn’t until page 183 that Deck asks, “What was the principle that guided the [mis-]speller? There wasn’t one. Many were guessing, as if they’d never been taught to pay attention to the letters when learning to read.” “As if” they’d never been taught? It is first of all obvious to a blind fool that most people who make these mistakes are guessing and know nothing of how language is guided by rules, so Deck’s remark is that of a clueless person. Second, it is clearly blaming teachers rather than the families and children who deride education and don’t bother listening to even the poor instruction they do get. Deck tries so hard not to offend “the public” with this mock-surprise at uneducated people’s lack of education, that, unfortunately, at the end he decides to throw in his lot with Direct Instruction, which is forced scripts for the inadequate teachers we already have. While he’s a fine writer and undoubtedly a skilled editor, I found Deck to be clueless about American education. So although their whimsical trip made for amusing reading, it left a bad taste in my mouth.
This was a fun read; quirky adventure stories with a hook more or less write themselves. But while Deck (who is the sole narrator) is an engaging, affable voice, I was a little put off by his conceptualization of how typos come about, which is arrestingly naïve: deep into his quest, he notes “we thought we saw evidence that these [grammatical and spelling] essentials weren’t being fully acquired by the populace.” This is such a wishy-washy cop-out with so many qualifiers – it’s obvious Deck doesn’t want to come off as an educated elitist – that it borders on self-parody. The plain fact is that these are not “typos” at all, but errors made by a public too stupid to know how to study or read and too proud of ignorance to care. But Deck doesn’t want to admit that, so he comes across to me as spineless. It isn’t until page 183 that Deck asks, “What was the principle that guided the [mis-]speller? There wasn’t one. Many were guessing, as if they’d never been taught to pay attention to the letters when learning to read.” “As if” they’d never been taught? It is first of all obvious to a blind fool that most people who make these mistakes are guessing and know nothing of how language is guided by rules, so Deck’s remark is that of a clueless person. Second, it is clearly blaming teachers rather than the families and children who deride education and don’t bother listening to even the poor instruction they do get. Deck tries so hard not to offend “the public” with this mock-surprise at uneducated people’s lack of education, that, unfortunately, at the end he decides to throw in his lot with Direct Instruction, which is forced scripts for the inadequate teachers we already have. While he’s a fine writer and undoubtedly a skilled editor, I found Deck to be clueless about American education. So although their whimsical trip made for amusing reading, it left a bad taste in my mouth.
March 29, 2011
Even though I majored in English and thought I'd enjoy this book, I was so bored! The author's around-the-country typo-correcting spree sounded interesting, and it may have been for him, but the book sure didn't turn out that way. First off, he bounces around between gung-ho and depressed about his adventure, then veers off on random philosophical/political asides that are, frankly, kind of annoying (mostly because he brings them up, then drops them without fleshing them out, and rarely offers supporting arguments for his opinions). And I don't see how liberal politics has much to do with grammar.
This book would have been infinitely more interesting if he'd stuck with typos, included more of what he found, explained better why they were wrong, and discussed the different options to make them right. He does briefly touch on grammar, usage, and language change, but only superficially, which is too bad because that was the most interesting stuff. This could have been a fun way to teach grammar! (Again, I'm an English major and like this kind of thing.) Instead, it reads more like a cross-country travelogue written by an insecure former rock (not the music kind) magazine editor who uses way too many "big" words and odd comparisons.
This book would have been infinitely more interesting if he'd stuck with typos, included more of what he found, explained better why they were wrong, and discussed the different options to make them right. He does briefly touch on grammar, usage, and language change, but only superficially, which is too bad because that was the most interesting stuff. This could have been a fun way to teach grammar! (Again, I'm an English major and like this kind of thing.) Instead, it reads more like a cross-country travelogue written by an insecure former rock (not the music kind) magazine editor who uses way too many "big" words and odd comparisons.
Read
July 27, 2011Disturbed because he hadn't done anything useful with his life by his 5-year (?!?) high school reunion, Jeff Beck decided to tour the United States with the goal of finding typos in public places and correcting them. When I saw an interview with this guy on the Today Show, I thought that it was a great thing to do, just probably not worthy of a whole book. Unfortunately, I was 120% right. There's not much substance, but you will find more adjectives and adverbs than you thought it was humanly possible to squeeze into 250 pages. That alone makes a narrative hard to read, but add in massive doses of melodrama and hyperbole and you'll start skimming the book by page 9, like I did.
That said, the last 1/5 of the book has some nice revelations, surprises and storytelling, so I'm glad I stuck with it.
_________
P.S. -- No review of this book would be complete without questioning Beck's authority on the subject. On page 22, he asks the rhetorical question: "What in the samhail was I doing?" (If someone can tell me what in the Sam Hill a "samhail" is, I'd appreciate it!)
That said, the last 1/5 of the book has some nice revelations, surprises and storytelling, so I'm glad I stuck with it.
_________
P.S. -- No review of this book would be complete without questioning Beck's authority on the subject. On page 22, he asks the rhetorical question: "What in the samhail was I doing?" (If someone can tell me what in the Sam Hill a "samhail" is, I'd appreciate it!)
February 16, 2014
I picked this book up for the title. I loved it but am now slightly afraid to write about it because I can't spell worth a darn (thank you computer for the lovely red line that appears whenever I truly misspell a word). But it frustrates me when people don't care enough about what they put out in the world to look at it twice before releasing it to the public.
Back to the book: I enjoyed the story involved as much as the need to correct the typos, but I think what really made the book fabulous to me was the evolution of the mission. We are all besieged by doubts at times, and that the authors agreed to share their doubts and the evolution of the mission based on expressing and exploring those doubts, took the book beyond a recounting of someone's adventure to the deeper exploration of how people respond to criticism of their environment (not them, just their environment).
It can be difficult to police yourself, you know what you are trying to say so even when rereading you can unconsciously forcibly correct it as you read. I hope I haven't embarrassed myself here, I am, at this precise moment, SUPER paranoid about my grammar and punctuation use.
Back to the book: I enjoyed the story involved as much as the need to correct the typos, but I think what really made the book fabulous to me was the evolution of the mission. We are all besieged by doubts at times, and that the authors agreed to share their doubts and the evolution of the mission based on expressing and exploring those doubts, took the book beyond a recounting of someone's adventure to the deeper exploration of how people respond to criticism of their environment (not them, just their environment).
It can be difficult to police yourself, you know what you are trying to say so even when rereading you can unconsciously forcibly correct it as you read. I hope I haven't embarrassed myself here, I am, at this precise moment, SUPER paranoid about my grammar and punctuation use.
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