Nov 24 2006

taxonomy of typographical balls-ups

tag: miss interpreted

Please use this taxonomy of typographical balls-ups with care.  Excel said it could break or get extended through use.  The taxonomy below is illustrated with sample sets of miss typed words collected from numerous emails sent by me last week,  genuine Wendy miss-types!:

 

1.   Wronk key:

  • w (a)
  • nest (next)

2.   Missd key:

  • wre (were)
  • viru (virus)
  • could (couldn’t)

3.   Mixed words while writyping:

  • quesries (questions-queries)

4.   Miss placed lettres

  • Karam (karma) 
  • waer (wear)

5.   Miss spelled (repeatedly)

  • desert (dessert)

6.   Miss Teary:

  • thatnou (thankyou)
  • change (chance)

7.   Sounds like (phonological replacements)

  • none! tee-hee, you weren’t expecting that now were you?  Neither was I!

8.   Doouble letter score (updated to add this category on 9th Dec 2006 after watching a presentation with the following typo’s)

  • grrew (grew)
  • quantiitatively (quantitatively)
  • thee (the)

Using the spell-checker effectively and proof reading do not rank highly as core Wendy skills.  Lack of an example of a phonological replacements (e.g. replacing there with their) is an extremely unusual omission from this week’s emails.  Falling-over and making a good English style cuppa tea are, by contrast, core Wendy skills.

one thought on “taxonomy of typographical balls-ups”

  1. theCultFigurine (published 33 comments) thinks:

    I love taxonomies. It feels great to put things in categories, doesn’t it?

    Off topic: My anti-spam word was “bonkers”. I say that word ALL THE TIME lately; is your anti-spam-bot psychic?

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