Last evening I attended a lovely cello recital in a private home in my neighborhood. Sitting in the parlor listening to Brahms on a 1768 Benjamin Banks, many of us deep in reverie (or snoozing—hard to tell), I was startled to see a teacup roll off its saucer from the lap of my abstracted neighbor Peggy.
I tensed for the crash, but the cup hit the plush Aubusson, somersaulted gently onto the wood floor, and miraculously righted itself without a sound. At a suitable moment, I retrieved it from under the settee and handed it back. Peggy inspected it for damage, caught her breath, and whispered “Spode!”
Walking home, I pulled out my cell phone, thinking how lucky Peggy had been not to break the china—and saw that my ringer was on. Full blast. This time the luck was mine, not to have jerked everyone awake with a tinny chorus of “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”
In copyediting, we forget, we overlook, we nod off. Often we catch our errors (or someone else does) before it’s too late, and no doubt we are happily unaware of many errors that make it into print. Copyediting and proofreading the sixteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, the team here caught typos and errors in every round, and every time, we felt the relief that comes with escaping shame and embarrassment, along with the naive hope that now it’s perfect.
But inevitably a few goofs are lurking in the pages. (And knowing our readers, we won’t remain unaware of them for long.)
I take great comfort in other people’s typos – not because I’m any better than they are (most of the time, anyway) but because they remind me that even the smartest of us can miss a thing or two.