Suck It Up Writer, Typos Happen
Here’s how you eliminate them
My daughter was crying. I raced into the kitchen, followed closely by Alfie.
When I saw the carnage, I spun around to stop Alfie from entering. A hard ask, as it’s easier to make Uber profitable than it is to stop an inquisitive mini bull terrier from doing what they want to do.
It had shattered as it hit the floor. She’d given herself a fright and as it was a rare vintage Iittala glass, breaking it had upset her even more, hence the tears.
“No problem,” I said once I’d coaxed the dog out. “It’s just glass and I’ve broken more glasses than you’ll ever break in your life.”
These were the same words the head waiter had said to me when I dropped a crate of 100 wine glasses in my summer job as a busboy in a restaurant. I thought I was going to get fired, he’d just laughed.
Typos are like glasses, dropping them from time to time is inevitable, and no one makes as many typos as a pro writer.
Typos are embarrassing though. I just discussed this with an old friend after I’d praised a piece his colleague had written. They work for a small asset manager, so their portfolio managers write their own copy. My friend said it was a shame there were a few typos in the text.
Hah, who cares?
Typos matter, but not thaaat much
So, here’s what you need to know about typos. Don’t stress, people are forgiving. A few typos will not destroy a good piece, readers get that. But how do you minimise typos when you don’t have a team of editors?
The best is to have someone proofread your article (friend/colleague). It’s important they know it’s a proofread, not an editing round. This is not the time for them to show you their writing mastery, suggesting changes to headlines and sentences. If this happens, it’s exactly when the typos will pop up, this last-minute jiggling about is a recipe for disaster. It’ll also destroy your confidence as they inject doubts into your mind about your writing. Treat these proofreaders like toilet paper: use only once and flush.
What if you’re all on your own and don’t have someone to proofread? Well, here’s what you do.
4 tips to eliminate typos
1. Sleep on it. Your mind needs to reset. For anyone literate, typos are most often not the result of stupidity, rather, the mind starts to remember what you thought you’d written, so it goes over those mistakes: your/you’re, sign/sing, there/their, these are all typical typos (which autocorrect can aggravate).
2. Use Grammarly, it’s free and better at picking up those pesky typos than Word.
3. Not so ESG, but supportive of the declining Finnish paper industry: Print your article and read it on paper.
4. If you’re against slaughtering trees, then change the font and size. Reading it in a different format helps.
There’s a fifth one as well. Once you’ve pressed “publish”, read it on the screen and groan when you spot a typo. However, if by this time you’re so fed up with your article you can’t bear to read it anymore, congrats, you’re a real writer.
And don’t stress, it’s only a tipo.
I’m Jay, I rant about writing but I’m also chatty, so sound off in the comments. For more actionable writing rants, subscribe to my Medium stories (about three a week). Click here.
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