More Typo Crime Scenes - and the Rewards of Vigilantism

I was at a petrol station in Dungarvan the other day when I spotted this gem out of the corner of my eye as I was gazing into the middle distance while filling the tank. I did a double take as I couldn't believe such a glaring possessive punctuation error could have made it to the printers without someone proofing it en route - but I suppose nothing should surprise me at this stage!

My typo vigilantism is getting worrying now - not alone am I winning the prize for the best entry in the Irish Times Terrible Typos competition which I blogged about here - but I spotted two errors in the Letters page of the same "paper of record" as it's dubbed - which prompted me to write to Madam Editor. I didn't get published in the Letters Page - rather I got an email from the Letters Ed thanking me for pointing out the error of their ways.

Sparing the blushes of the writers of the letters with the typos probably, or their own blushes for missing them in the proofing. I did ask if they can mess around with someone's letter and correct spelling mistakes and grammatical glitches, but that wasn't addressed in the reply I received.

So there I was wandering around a Home and Garden shop - again in Dungarvan, where I'm work-based - one lunchtime last week, and marvelling at the prices (high by my frugal standards) when this beauty leapt from the display stand, begging to be snapped. I duly obliged and here is the result. Isn't it amazing that the boss wouldn't check the spelling before putting the poster on display, as it is written correctly on all the boxes containing the same Utensils!

But then there'd be no fun for anoraks like me - and no market for books like the "Great Typo Hunt" one and the classic that (for me) started the ball rolling - Lynn Truss's "Eats, Shoots and Leaves"

By the way, in case you're (your!) wondering what I bought with my winnings from the Terrible Typos competition - well, half the tokens are gone - on two great books that I know will give me hours of pleasure. One is "Adrian Mole - The Prostrate Years" by Sue Townsend who penned that wonderful series of Adrian Mole books, taking us from his adolescent agonies to his male menopausal misery and beyond.

The other is Tim Butcher's new African saga - "Chasing the Devil: The Search for Africa's Fighting Spirit" - his Boys' Own Adventure re-telling of following in the footsteps of Graham Greene's 1935 "Journey Without Maps". I haven't yet read Greene's book, and I guess that's another one to add to my wishlist. Tim was in Lismore two years ago at Immrama as a speaker and enthralled everyone with his account of his travails and travels in the footsteps of Henry Morton Stanley along the Congo River which he wrote about in "Blood River". I had the pleasure of meeting him at Immrama and the dubious pleasure of having him tell me he'd read an online review I'd written on Blood River after our Book Club in Lismore had read it!

The moral of that story was never to write anything about someone you wouldn't be happy to have them read in your presence - unless you're a journalist or a pol. corr. or suchlike.

I hope you enjoy these lighter looks at life and literacy - as well as literature!