AnchorMommy

Typo Patrol: Inagural Belssings and Sympotoms

December 11, 2009 by Shannon

Perhaps you recall my magazine addiction. I LOVE them. I love how they feel, I love how they smell — yes, I said smell — I love everything about them. And when I see a nice, locally produced magazine it’s like I’m a moth drawn to a flame. I think I’m especially drawn to the ones produced in Idaho because I write for a local magazine called Meridian Living. I like to keep tabs on the local publishing scene.

So when I came across the first issue of the new Healthy Idaho, I was intrigued. The photography is nice and the layout is clean, even though it looks as if much of the content is not locally produced. Still, it’s a high quality item, as my husband and I like to say.

But then….something piqued my Typo Patrol radar. Sadly, the error was in the very first sentence of the editor’s letter (emphasis added):

Hello, and welcome to the inagural issue of Healthy Idaho!

Dang. An error in your very first sentence? That sucks. Then I had a good chuckle, because of the very next paragraph:

I love words. They can be thought provoking and motivating when properly strung together…

He may love words, but not enough to spell check them.

And just a few pages in, I found another typo. Yikes.

…how to spot the sympotoms and how to prevent it.

Ooh, sounds serious. Don’t think I’ve ever had a sympotom and I don’t think I want one either.

The second issue started off well. In fact, I found very little to scoff at throughout the magazine, aside from an extra space between words. And then I caught another doozy:

“Health is the first and greatest of all belssings.”

Obviously the background photo makes the error a little tougher to see. Still! If you were launching a brand new magazine, wouldn’t you double and triple check every single page layout for errors? Or at least spell check the crap out of the thing? I would too.

I do like Healthy Idaho. I think it’s a nice looking magazine, and will be even better once they work out the kinks (and perhaps work in a little more locally generated content). I wish the editorial staff many belssings — I mean, blessings — with their new endeavor.