I am a proofreader by nature. I am constantly finding typos and poor spelling in advertising, on the sides of buses, on television, on packaging… there has been an enormous decline in spelling and grammar in the last 10 years, I think. Is that due to the prevalence of computers and reliance on spell check? Or is it an indictment of our public schools?
Whatever the reason, it is one of my biggest pet peeves. I’m driven to distraction by all the missing letters and transposed characters. I always check my work — why do so many just let it slide through? I’m willing to bet that you’ll find fewer misspelled words in the thousands of entries in my blog than you will in just one typical MySpace page.
Perhaps this is the art director in me, my need to obsessively check every detail before something is final.
Anyway, it would behoove the U.S. Postal Service to hire a few fascist nitpickers like myself:
The Postal Service recently, with great fanfare, issued a new set of stamps depicting motorcycles. Collectors who buy copies issued on the first day the stamps are available can get them with a special commemorative postmark. Unfortunately, the colorful postmark spells it “motorcyle.”
