Typos that shouldn't be possible

[rhu]

From yesterday's NYT, dead tree edition (it seems to have been corrected in the online version), an op-ed column about Caroline Kennedy:

  It might even be liberating. It can’t be
  fun to live your life defined — in the pu-
  bic eye at least — by your tragic past.

First time I read it, something triggered subliminally that "this is wrong." Second time through, I said, "That's funny, it really strikes me as the wrong word." Third time through, I actually saw the typo.

But you'd think the computer would pop up a warning. "Are you sure you mean to use that word?" Until the columnist and a copy editor have both explicitly approved it, the system should assume it's wrong.

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Remember The Observer, the other newspaper at Hunter? They ran an article one about the question of whether Hunter was considered a pubic school. No one caught that typo beforehand, and very few people caught it afterward.

[diceytillerman.livejournal.com]

I made that typo in a handwritten paper in sixth grade. (When I was in sixth grade, all paper were handwritten.)

My teacher was the soul of tact -- all he did was add the L -- but I felt like I'd *die* of embarassment. And clearly am still haunted by it, as 28 years have passed and I still remember.