Sunday, February 2, 2014

Typos

While I'm no Speed Demon Typist, I type fairly quickly. Probably 60 to 80 words a minute when I'm on a roll. When I'm drafting I look at the screen and of course see all my typos. My fingers automatically hit backspace and fix the typos before I type on. I've tried to force myself to leave them and fix them later, but I can't do it. They fester and I end up wasting more time looking for them because not all of them are identified by Scrivener.

  • one that I make Every. Single. Time is "int he" instead of "in the". It would make my life a lot easier if int wasn't a word!
  • I also have to backspace and fix the "dl" instead of "ld" on "could/couldn't" and "would/wouldn't" pretty much every time
  • teh instead of the (According to this list the is the #1 misspelled word using a QWERTY keyboard)
  • when I type "and" the "d" is often attached to the next word instead of itself
  • I also switch up there, three, theer with alarming regularity.
I bet Scrivener can auto-fix some of these for me - I just have to figure out how! :)

How about you? What typos drive you mad? Do you stop & fix too?

44 comments:

erica and christy said...

My "the" mistake generally turns it to hte. :( In Microsoft Word, I end up doing a find and replace just to make sure I caught them all! Ah, well, at least it means we're getting words on paper, right?
erica

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I'm a perfectionist, so I always have to backspace and fix them immediately. And I'm only going about thirty words a minute. Sad huh?

Jemi Fraser said...

Erica - this is true! I'll remember that next time I'm growling at my fingers!

Alex - not sad at all! I keep telling my students they will never regret learning how to type quickly. It may be boring but it's so worth it!!

Anonymous said...

Sometimes my mind is sluggish and I make many mistakes. Other times my fingers aren't positioned correctly over the keyboard. I usually fix the typos right away.

Natalie Aguirre said...

Yes, I definitely have to go back and fix mine too. I couldn't leave them sit there.

Jemi Fraser said...

Medeia - I hate when I type a whole chunk with my fingers on the wrong keys! So annoying :)

Natalie - me either! :)

L. Diane Wolfe said...

Back and forth, back and forth. That sounds familiar. I'm always hitting ; when I mean to hit '. I'm also good at mixing up my letters. Can you develop dyslexia when you're older?

Susan J. Reinhardt said...

I can relate. What's frustrating is most of my typos are actual words, so I can't rely on spell check to pick up the errors.

Beth said...

I always mess up couldn't and wouldn't, although for me it's the apostrophe that is misplaced. 'Couple' always gets the 'u' and 'p' mixed up. And for some reason 'stir' always gets an extra 'e' at the end!

Stacy McKitrick said...

I'm a perfectionist typist, too. Especially when it comes to spelling. I usually type made for mad, which is really bad, because it's hard to find even when I read over it!

Jemi Fraser said...

Diane - good question! If so I wouldn't be surprised I'm there too! :)

Susan - exactly!! It's those real words that I didn't intend that drive me the nuttiest!

Beth - I know I add an extra e to some words too but I can't remember which ones at the moment!

Stacy - oooh! That's a tough one to find for sure!!

Dianne K. Salerni said...

I am glad to hear that I'm not the only person who mistypes the same things over and over!

I cannot type tonight without it first coming out as tonghit. And yes, I add an extra e to words that end in th -- like both.

Jemi Fraser said...

Dianne - I've done tong-hit too! :)

JeffO said...

There's one I make all the time, only now I can't remember what it is. Time to get back to writing so I can figure it out. I also have a tendency to cap the first two letters of a new sentence, as I guess whichever finger is doing the typing is too fast for the finger that's supposed to leave the SHift key. Doh! There it is!

Jemi Fraser said...

Jeff - I do the double cap thing too! I always have to backspace that one! :)

Searching for the Story said...

Fixing them as you go is probably best. Doing a full proof-read on a manuscript is a very involved process.

Anonymous said...

I make a lot of the same mistakes because I also type very quickly--it seems like I type as fast as I think. Mistakes happen, I guess, because we are "saying" them so fast in our minds that the brain says "hit those keys"

Jemi Fraser said...

Ethan - that's very true! :)

Catherine - that's a terrific explanation! :)

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

I'm like you...fast typist but with small and fairly regular errors. I've found that auto-correct tends to catch many of mine, although I do run the spell-check through at the end for anything I've missed.

S.A. Larsenッ said...

I know exactly what you're referring to. Drives me nuts! But worse, I have a few word quirks that no matter how many times I use them I NEVER EVER spell them correctly. UGH!

Yvonne Osborne said...

Word automatically corrects some of the common typos you mentioned, but I don't know about Scrivener. When I'm caught up in the euphoric rush of an unfolding story, I don't stop to edit unless I know I've made a dumb typo, and then I fix it. Otherwise I wait until I've reached the end of a scene or a thought or an exchange of dialogue and then go back and make corrections.

Jemi Fraser said...

Elizabeth - I always need to do that spell check too! :)

Sheri - I've got those words too! I've got to spell government and environmental letter by letter each time! :)

Yvonne - Scrivener likes to keep some of my oops as is :(
Keeping those corrections until the flow is gone is a good idea!

DMS said...

I make some of the same typos you mentioned. It is amazing how often I make the same mistakes and I think it must be the way my brain thinks when I am typing, since they are words I know how to spell. I try to leave the typos too- but when I notice them I try to fix them, since so many of them are actual words and might not be caught for a long time, if ever. :)

Thanks for sharing!
~Jess

Jemi Fraser said...

Jess - exactly! As Ethan said earlier it's better to grab them while you know where they are! :)

Crystal Collier said...

I'm totally like you--it kills me to see typos on the screen. Better just to get rid of them and stay sane. I'm a "teh" girl, and I also have a propensity to miss "n" in the middle two to three syllable words. If it's at the end or beginning of the word, no problems. Crazy, right?

Jemi Fraser said...

Crystal - not even a little bit! I can't believe the typos I type and retype and retype and... (and I typed and as 'adn' both times :))

Missed Periods said...

As the Greeks said, "Know thy typos!"

Jemi Fraser said...

MP - you always make me smile! :)

klahanie said...

Hey Jemi,

You can," Probably 60 to 80 words a minute when I'm on a roll." I tried typing on a loaf of bread and it didn't make me type any quicker :)

I can type. Learnt to type in high school. Got past the hunt and strike stage. I always backspace to fix tipos, um typos....

Gary :)

Jemi Fraser said...

Gary - LOL - you need the round dinner rolls, not the bread - it's always mushy! :)

Lynda R Young as Elle Cardy said...

I don't use Scrivener. I use Word instead and Word can definitely autofix a lot of those typos. You can also tell it to fix some of your more common ones that may not already be in the system.
My biggest typo is in the flavour of ehart(instead of heart--hahaaha I had to fix the second verson coz I still typed in ehart!! rawr!)

Jemi Fraser said...

Lynda - that's hilarious!!! :) I keep finding more as I work on my wip - there are so many!!

TL said...

You pretty much covered all of mine, lol! Maybe all but the there/three/theer. Haven't hit that one yet. ;)

Jemi Fraser said...

Tara - give it time :) It's funny how we all have our own quirks! :)

LD Masterson said...

Mine is adn for and. I type it wrong 90% of the time. And I have to stop and fix it.

Jemi Fraser said...

Linda - that's another of mine! Drives me batty! :)

Kelly Polark said...

It's frustrating so I have to fix the typos right away! I do the teh a lot too!

Julie Musil said...

OMG I make those same mistakes! Nice to know we're not alone :)

Jemi Fraser said...

Kelly - the/'teh' seems to be a pretty common one!

Julie - our fingers must be twins!! :)

DEZMOND said...

Since I'm a book translator, my fingers are almost always faster than my brain :) These mistakes that you mention with the switch of letters are mostly due to the way those letters are placed on our keyboards :)

Jack said...

Those are the same words I always typo, in exactly the same way! It is a pain too, as I am sure you know, because they just keep happening. I didn't know Int was a word, that explains those why it never shows up when I type it.

Jemi Fraser said...

Dezzy - that makes sense - and it probably helps that we're past the point of thinking letter by letter.

Jack - according to Google, it's an acceptable short form of Internet. Annoying! :)

cleemckenzie said...

After umpteen edits I still found these typos in my WIP: you're meaning your, their meaning there. My brain stutters sometimes and I just can't stop it. Your typos are annoying, I'm sure. Mine, embarrassing!

Jemi Fraser said...

Lee - it's SO frustrating when you find one of those. You know better ... but your fingers have minds of their own! :)