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An excellent idea, Joanne, about taking form and from out of the dictionary!
That's one of my favorite typos, too.
Like you, I once had an error that eluded not three but FIVE pairs of eyes!
Don't remember what it was, but it was one of those with a neon sign on it. How
it escaped all those reviews is a mystery, but it sure did. Fortunately, I
caught it the last edit!
Jo Byrd
joanne grey wrote in part:
> Ah, here's my favorite spell-checker error. This one got past three reviewers,
> proving that people see what they expect to see. It was on its way to
> blue-line before it got caught.
>
> In writing a User's Guide for a wonderful piece of (now obsolete) software, I
> was defining all the customization options available. These were accessed via
> a series of property sheets. Unfortunately, that day my brain was faster than
> my fingers, and I typed "property sheep" instead.
>
> Since "sheep" is a legitimate word, the spell checker sailed right past it. So
> did the three reviewers.
>
> Thank goodness the final reviewer caught it and was quite curious about how
> you would open one of "them thar property sheeps".
>
> It was after that that I began using spell checkers as just one tool and not
> relying on them too much. I also took "form" and "from" out of the dictionary,
> so that it can't find them and checks with me for those,
> too.
