What is terrifying to you? A Stephen King novel? Is Halloween your favorite holiday? It’s one of mine.
We find comfort in knowing the terror is not real.
Real terror? It’s that moment you discover a typo in your business communication.
The following illustrates the correct (I hope) use of similar-sounding words. Ah, those treacherous traps of terrifying typos.
Ten Terrifying Typos
We know it was a silly typo when you used the word that way. You did not mean to. Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
But even more terrifying is a typo in a post about typos. I refer to posts like these as the kiss of death. If you find one, be kind.
Below is a revision of a short presentation about Ten Terrifying Typos. Be sure to stick to the end for an early Halloween treat (?). The commonly misused words are in capital letters.
Typo Tips
No communication is completely foolproof. I have a Missinglettr campaign where I used a wrong word version in one of the social media postings. Of course, the post was about hitting Send too soon. Although I caught it quickly, the incorrect version keeps showing up (over and over again).
But there are steps you can take to eradicate pesky errors.
- Keep a list of the words you tend to stumble over. Pull it out as part of your editing.
- When in doubt, look it up.
- Let others know about typos – but discreetly. No need to blast it to the world. Trust me, it will come back to bite you.
Paper lovers
- Need more time for reviewing the presentation?
- Download the pdf version.
What typos terrify you? Which ones are your pet peeves? I could write a new post on that subject, but I fear the kiss of death fallout.
Share your thoughts in Comments.
==================================
==================================
Note: In 2015, SSB took a year-long alphabetic journey for better business communication. Each post contained an A-to-Z topic for creating better business communication. This ‘T’ post originally published on October 5, 2015. It was Halloween-inspired but I figured terrifying is year-round (especially the last few years). So this June 17, 2022 version updates it. The plan is to update each alphabetic post. Hopefully, it will not take a year to complete. I’m way ahead of schedule. 😊
===================================
Love it! You should do a video English teachers can show their students. They’d learn more from something like this than they would from a textbook.
BTW: Affect/Effect still gets me. I’m sure it always will.
Thanks, Paula. As I mentioned at Anne’s Forum, affect/effect was a pet peeve of my dad’s. He hated when they were used incorrectly. As a result, they are in my DNA. 😉
A tip I used on my Common Writing Errors freebie ~
Affect is a verb, e.g., The misuse of this word affected my Dad negatively. Effect is a noun, e.g., The misuse of this word had a negative effect on my Dad.
Tip: Verb = Action, Action and Affect begin with the letter A.
I have much bigger terrors!
Something worse than a typo, Roy?! 😉
Cathy, your laugh — I think you’ve found a second career. LOL What a great video.
I still get mixed up with the who/whom stuff. I look it up on a regular basis. 🙂
Thanks, Lori. Always good to have a backup. 😉 And I agree about who/whom, which could be why it’s not on the list. LOL! 😀
Clever! Cool! Creative!
So few blog posts have an element of fun + terror (as in typos). Great video, Cathy — timely and festive for the season. Love it! 🙂
A Boo! Boo! (just couldn’t resist) I see a lot is the misuse of “choose” and “chose”. Drives me batty! (Yeah, I like Halloween, too.) 😉
Your posts are a treat! (There I go again) LOL!
Write On!
xoxo
Thank you, Melanie. I confess my heart skipped a beat when I read a Boo! Boo! I was sure it was mine. LOL! 😀 Thanks for getting with the Halloween theme, Melanie. 🙂