Someone's probably fired.

Can't get much worse than a typo in the lead story of the most-read part of a national newspaper of record. Well, maybe if that typo completely reverses the connotation of a plot point.

In case you can't tell what's wrong, the phrase in question reads "could set the stage for a slowdown with Microsoft." It should be a showdown with Microsoft. Couldn't be a much more egregious typo. In a copyediting class, it would most likely be an instant F. In a newsroom, I imagine this would be a firing offense -- or at least a serious hourlong chew-out session with the editor.

I would imagine this resulted from a lazy copyeditor relying on the computer spellchecker to catch any typos. But any editor can tell you, with spellcheck came a new bugaboo to watch for, what I call "typonyms." A typonym* is a typo that creates a different real word, thus rendering it invisible to spellcheckers. In addition to slowdown/showdown, a very common example would be two/tow.

Typonyms are particularly dangerous when editing on the screen for some reason. I try to print things out to edit them whenever I can, particularly so I can catch things like this.

*Typonym already existed as a word: it's an arcane term for "a name based on a type or specimen." Google found 444 references, so I'm guessing few people will mind if I steal it for more modern use.

Posted by Andrew Huff at April 18, 2005 01:37 PM