As you may have guessed from the fact that I continually read, write, and edit, I love words. I love wordplay, and typographical errors are an inadvertent form of wordplay. I find some of them quite humorous, which is why I suspected I would enjoy Just My Typo by Drummond Moir.
I did. If you ask my husband, I'm sure he'll tell you how I cackled obnoxiously through the whole thing.
One of my personal favorite "typos" in my life occurred when I was in high school and asked to borrow my friend's history notes from a class I missed. We were studying the feudal system, but in her notes she kept referring to "the futile system."
As an editor, my favorite howler was the time an author who shall remain nameless meant to write "in a far corner" but instead typed "in a fart corner." I laughed much harder at this one than at "the futile system." I almost hate to admit it, but the more rude or obscene the typo, the funnier I seem to find it. Several times in Just My Typo, missing or rearranged letters turn "pool" into "poo" and "carp" into "crap." I have to say, these errors tickle my funny bone.
Of course, I enjoy other kinds of amusing word errors as well.
If you're a person who loves words and finds them amusing, there's a good chance you'll enjoy Just My Typo. It's a perfect quick read for when you have an hour or so to read something short and humorous. Reading it in public is not recommended, since you may find yourself chortling or even laughing our loud.
Official Book Blurb: "A charming collection of typographical errors, slips of the pen, and embarrassing misprints, Just My Typo celebrates the awful and the sublime mistakes that riddle our feeble human attempts at communication.
"It's time to accept the truth: typos are everywhere. Legal documents are riddled with errors, headlines of respectable publications are rife with misspellings, and even your favorite books need a few reprints to get everything right. Isn't it time we learned to laugh at our mistakes instead of despairing? Just My Typo is an irresistible collection of the most humorous, mistakenly poignant, and downright awful typos in texts, from the Bible to insurance advertisements to political slogans.
"Within these pages, you’ll travel back in time with great figures from history, such as Sir Francis Drake (who circumcised the world in a small ship) and Rambo (the famous French poet). You’ll also find valuable moral instruction (“Blessed are the meek, for they shall irrigate the earth.”), and meet politicians who exploit disasters to boost their pubic profiles. Structured according to categories (such as, “To Be or To Be: Typos in Literature”), you’ll easily find either a quick laugh or a relaxing—and cringe-inducing—read. A few more of the gems within:
· “The Queen pissed graciously over the Menai Bridge.”
[Well, a queen may piss where she pleases.]
· “I am certain of one thing. Whatever may come between us—and wherever he may be on earth—Arthur will always remember that I love ham.” (The Parting, Millicent Hemming)
· “Love is just a passing fanny.”
"Editors, proofreaders, and writers everywhere pull their hair out trying to eliminate mistakes, to no avail. Celebrating the humanity of our errors and the timelessness of mistakes, Just My Typo is essential reading for anyone who values the power and peril of the written word."
About the Author: Drummond Moir grew up in Edinburgh and studied at St. Anne’s College, Oxford, and Daiichi Keizai University in Fukuoka, Japan. Now based in London, he is Editorial Director of Sceptre, one of the UK’s leading literary imprints.
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.
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