Compliments of the Season to you, and many more!
So I have a small collection of news outlet typos and odd juxtapositions, and this year I pledge to share them with you. By "typos" I mean spelling, grammar, or usage errors; by "odd juxtapositions" I mean items that really shouldn't be placed next to each other on page or screen. In the print world, this can be something like a Macy's underwear ad on the same page with an article about invasive search procedures at airports. (Why are those models smiling?) On the Web it can be more extreme, because stories and ads tend to rotate often, with little or no human supervision. This can cause a picture of boxers (the dogs, not the underwear) in a Humane Society story to appear next to an offer to find "your perfect match" via an online dating site.
Usually such occurrences appear on the outlet's home page, which is to me a greater offense than appearing on an internal page which may get fewer viewings. Although no stranger to typos myself, I think it's worth noting when a bunch of writers, readers, and editors can't keep on top of this. Or when an intern who pulls an extra shift on a holiday is left to his or her own devices and decides to have a little fun. Sooo...
To start the New Year off right, at the top of this post is an example from the home page of the L.A. Times of January 1, 2010. My comment to the Times: Sorry, folks, but that doesn't look like Sully at all!
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