Friday, February 22, 2008

an eight-year-old error

I was browsing through Moving a Puddle because Holly's reading some of it for the first time, and a friend of hers might be reading it. I found an error.

"Damn it!" I said to no one. Marty came in.

"What?"

"A typo. Well, not a typo. An editing error." I read it to him. It's on page 42


In a very kind voice Marty said, "Well your life will be over soon and you won't have to worry about it."

"Thanks!" I said brightly, and I meant it, because honestly—how much do I beat myself about something that two editors missed and I missed and that doesn't harm anyone's safety or progress?

Marty said "I'm just here to help." But honestly he did help.

My big error is in having adverbs which should've been changed to adjectives when I re-wrote some part of that middle phrase:


It’s about how people learn—how easily and effortlessly natural learning is, and how difficult-to-impossible “formal education” is compared to the real learning that goes on every day of a person’s life.

DOH! should be "easy and effortless"


Here's all I can do at the moment. I can put that article online with the corrections. It's one of the essays that hadn't been anywhere but in its original publication (in Enchanted Families, a local newsletter for homeschoolers) and in Moving a Puddle.

Now it will be here: http://sandradodd.com/input

1 comment:

Babette said...

I see your son can bring great moments of enlightenment with shocking statements too. Last week my boy asked me what 'hag' meant, then he told me I was the greatest hag ever.