This misspelled headline showed up on this week’s Heroes. Um, what the hell? You can’t use a spell-checker?
Some people think typos don’t matter. (I’m confidant these people are crazy.) Typos are distracting, sloppy, and responsible for climate change. And kudos to you if you can find the typo in this post.
Thanks to Nat, fellow grammar stickler, for the tip.
Huh. When I (barely) saw that on Monday, I thought it said “Chechen,” and I was wondering – what were Chechen rebels doing in Angola?
Can’t read it.
Did it suspend your suspension of disbelief?
Um, what the hell indeed? J.J. (I assume you meant Abrams) has nothing to do with this show. He’s the Lost guy. You can’t use a fact checker?
Dude, speaking of fact checking: JJ Abrams has nothing to do with Heroes. Blame Tim Kring.
Confidant I can.
If I opened up my morning reports to find angry pics of Zeljko Ivanek – I’d probably misspell a few things two.
Fixed the J.J. thing. I was just testing you…
You’re confidant about that?
Well, clearly they deserved to die. Civ-*villain*! It’s a hint. A hint with mangled spelling, but still.
There are far more problems with this season of Heroes than a small typo on a prop newspaper.
It’s a CLEW!!!
Gillian, I am assuming “confidant” was a joke/test as well? Otherwise, you have some ‘splainin’ to do.
It’s fucking TV. What did you expect?
But in their defense, that would be rather hard to catch on a typical standard definition setup, especially if wasn’t in view for more than a few seconds (I didn’t watch it myself). TV production is much faster paced than film, and until recently, the poor picture quality of the medium allowed a lot of mistakes to not hold things up.
I found it, and I swear I didn’t cheat.
Still deciding whether this season is worse or werse than season 2.
I haven’t read the posts yet in my rush to get the answer down. Please forgive me if it’s already been given.
Confident is spelled wrong. You have confidant as “a confidant” (meaning friend), rather than “confident” (meaning self-assured).
Thanks for playing.
Well, last week in the P-I, I saw a headline in which Colombia was spelled “Columbia.” The country was spelled correctly in the article and in the caption accompanying a photo. I almost clipped it and saved it as a memento of a soon-to-be-dead daily, but hey, I have a small house. I don’t need any more miscellaneous scraps of paper.
I’m “confidant” you should remove the periods after “matter” and “crazy” and insert one after the closing parenthesis instead. But then, I’m confident of a lot of things that may or may not be correct.
@19 – It is acceptable to have a complete sentence in closed parentheses. (Here is an example.) One can also do as you described, and have the parenthetical phrase before the period (like this).
Sigh. Spelling is not grammar; being a grammar stickler is not the same as being an expert in, or fan of, orthography. Grammaticality should never be confused with spelling, register, or informality.
Plus, can you really stickle grammar or spelling anyway?
Gillian, could you not use single quotation marks to set off a title please? Thanks. 🙂
#20 – I know, I know, but it bugs me. The same way the missing third comma in “boats, cars and planes” (for example) bugs me. Also, I’m terrible with typos and grammar most of the time on SLOG, so no one should care what I think on the matter.
the missing third comma?
Gillian, it’s a clue, yo. It’s an error on purpose. Still mad?
I love Heroes but I don’t watch it frame by frame, so I didn’t catch this. It would not surprise me if it’s an intentional subliminal misspelling.
@24, Dougsf means “serial comma.” The serial comma is awesome and is mandated by Chicago, but cruelly tossed aside by the AP and MLA styles.
So what I’m saying is that the serial comma is actually a style issue, not a grammar issue.
Anyway. I’m sure you have waaaay more important things to worry about. 🙂
How do you know it wasn’t intentional? Newspapers fuck up too, so it could be that a fictional newspaper made a real typo.
So, volume 3 is subtitled “Villains.” Civilain is a covert attempt to subliminally etch branding into your mind (like how everything is framed as signal bars in the cell phone commercials).
STOP
Grammar time
typos like that don’t compare to the constant misuse of “jives” when “jibes” is what they mean to write.
if only the american public were more conversant in sailing terminology.
Remember to do your confiDance Dance Dance!
Heroes is already guilty of plagiarism, (both the creators of X-Men and Watchmen have grounds for a suit), so why not add sloppy production values to the charge as well?
People still watch ‘Heroes’? Why?
You’ve evidently never read the London Times. They evidently don’t have a proofreader.
I believe the term is “grammar Nazi” not “grammar stickler.” You must be beside yourself over “Inglorious Basterds.” A typo isn’t a grammar error btw, it’s a typing or typesetting mistake. A grammar mistake is something closer to using single quotes around a title when an underscore, italics, or, at very least, full quotes would be standard English usage. And no one believes your “just testing” b.s. about mistaking “J.J.” for having anything to do with “Heroes”
Isn’t it fun being pedantic?
“using single quotes around a title” is a style choice, not a grammar error. There are no italics or underscores in English grammar that I am aware of.
A grammatical error would be mismatch of subject and verb e.g. “They is here”.
Even the MS Word proofing tools distinguish between spelling, grammar and style.