In the spirit of the New Year, traditionally a time of beginnings and endings, excesses and remorse, it seems appropriate to address at least a few errors I made in this column during the past year.
Some were called to my attention and others went unnoticed or were dismissed as simply typos or production errors. I used to agonize over every single one, particularly when I was editing. This came from my journalism teachers, who denied students any credit at all for a piece submitted even one minute after deadline or containing just one “gross factual error.” The dreaded GFE could be a misspelled proper noun, an incorrect date or a false assumption made by the reporter. That was good training, but in the real world, produces needless ulcers and edgy temperament among editors.
Since then, standards have slipped in major metropolitan dailies all over the country, where missing prepositions and repeated conjunctions have become the norm. Probably they occur more frequently because those editors are now more concerned with false reporting (think Jayson Blair). Or perhaps it’s just sloppiness that comes from the sort of e-mail shorthand that reduced Laugh Out Loud to LOL and you to “u.” It’s anyone’s guess. But maybe nobody has time to care anymore.
Errors of substance are another matter and really should be addressed as soon as they’re pointed out, often by irate readers who disagree with the writer’s view or just missed a point of humor. Satire is a risky business.
In a column titled “Thou shalt render unto Darwin . . .” last January, I must have struck a nerve among proponents of teaching Creationism and labeling evolution as unproven theory in school texts. One reader was so upset over my quoting Los Angeles Times columnist Dan Neal (a fine satirist) that he totally missed a typo that changed Pope John XXIII to John XIII. Oops. My bad.
The next month, I was taken to task by my sister (usually a fan) and one of her colleagues, both of whom teach algebra, when I wrote, “While mastering algebraic equations may be a beneficial mental exercise, its practical value is zip.” She pointed out several useful applications of algebra, which I promptly forgot. So sorry. Algebra teachers have enough difficulty getting through to hormone-ravaged teen-aged brains.
Then a dreaded GFE cropped up in a May column, “Nonsense, Our Official Language.” In obsessing about the accent over Renée Fleming’s name, I dropped the final “e” essentially changing her gender. My apologies to our most delightful soprano.
Perhaps the most egregious error I made all year was relying on the factual accuracy of an Internet advisory sent to me by a good friend, a writer of nonfiction books whom I admire. I used this in June for “An Ounce of Prevention” even though I had misgivings about taking anything from the Internet without being able to check the sources. I called my friend who assured me she knew the woman who was quoted as having attended a course in self-defense by a former police officer. Well, a reader demanded a retraction saying the material was out of date and referred to a Web site that debunks such articles. I checked the Web site and found they cited material dated years earlier than the one in question. I tried to find out more but failed miserably. I vow in this New Year never to trust an Internet source again. Ever.
In a Nov. 23 column on hunger in our country being officially renamed “food insecurity” I mentioned my husband had grown up during the Depression when real hunger was a persistent fact of life in his boyhood home in San Pedro. Either my spell check or that of a copy editor changed it to San Padre, wherever that is. Those sneaky computers just can’t be trusted.
Therefore, one of my resolutions for the New Year is to audit the spell checking process more attentively. Also to write and submit my columns before deadline so copy editors can do the same. Oops. My deadline is in 30 minutes. Drat.
But in my new spirit of loving kindness toward myself, editors, proofreaders and, most of all, readers, I acknowledge these errors and others that have passed unnoticed, and forgive all. Well, maybe not the computers.