WHEN IT COMES TO MISTEAKS, FOURGIVE AND FORGET

Astute Gazette readers keep watch on split infinitives, typos and point them out quickly

I’m still getting a terrific amount of reader response to a column I wrote two weeks ago about Trudeau meeting Trump — and most of it sounds similar.

“Dear Mr. Freed: How can a professional writer not know how to spell the word ‘stare’?”

Dear Mr. Freed: “Stare, Stair ????????? — Disappointing.” … “I was horrified.”

That’s because just before Trudeau’s meeting I offered him some advice, including: “Don’t stair at Trump’s hair.”

The error somehow slipped by me and overworked Gazette editors who usually spot my mistakes. But it didn’t escape dozens of astute Gazette readers who keep close watch on my missing apostrophes, split infinitives and typos — and are quick to let me know.

Some veteran readers added kinder words too (“Mum was an English teacher — I can’t help it”). But others were writing me for the first time, now that they finally had a decent reason.

“What kind of idiot can’t spell ‘stare’?! Can’t you use spellcheck?”

Part of the problem was I did have auto-correct on, but didn’t notice it had “corrected” the word “stare.” Sometimes you read a line over and over and stair right at an obvious error, but just don’t see it.

On one hand, auto-correct helps spot tiny typos you might miss, on the other you have to correct auto-correct. It watches you, but you must watch it, which pretty well sums up our relationship with machines today.

If I’m not careful about rechecking spell-checking, I can easily end up with “Mayor Coder” and “Premier Bouillon.” Or lose the “l” in “public,” triggering another avalanche of mail.

President Trump badly needs my eagle-eyed readers to go over his speeches and correct them. If so, they would have changed “Sweden” to “Afghanistan.”

Many letter-writers worried I’m setting a bad example for younger readers, although I’m not sure they need me for that, as they joyously write “LOL …c u 2moro. L8R.”

Many teenburgers — er, teenagers — just bang out a quick version of whatever they’re writing, assuming the computer will corrct their wurds. But I’m no critic, as I do have a flare for errors.

I’ve made some doozies over time. Years ago I referred to “the Planes of Abraham,” and I didn’t mean the Israeli air force.

I also absent-mindedly credited the novel War and Peace to Dostoyevsky, which made me sound like The Idiot, which he actually did write.

Then there was the time I got the gender of five small French towns wrong, spawning a host of letters from francophone readers. In my defence, in that same column about festivals, I got 38 other Quebec towns’ genders right.

As an anglo it was easy to get St. Agnes de Dundee wrong, as I assumed Agnes was a female Ste. Or was “St. Agnes” secretly a man, or a cross-dresser?

I’m not alone in making errors. The New York Times is famed for its regular apologies for typos, including a prominent front page headline two years ago:

“PANIC WERE EBOLA RISK IS TINY; STOICISM WHERE IT’S REAL.”

More recently, they referred to “Kyrzbekistan,” which doesn’t exist, instead of Kyrgyzstan, which does.

Back in 2000 they corrected the number of bras they’d reported Ivana Trump buys. “It is two dozen black, two dozen beige and two dozen white — not two thousand of each.”

There was also an infamous Reuters story several years ago referring to Pakistan’s liberal party, the Muttahida Quami Movement, as the Muttonhead Quail Movement.

Yet nothing matches the greatest sin in the publishing world’s reign of error. The 1632 edition of the King James Bible omitted one word, so the seventh commandment read: “Thou shalt commit adultery.”

Book collectors call this edition the “Adulterers’ Bible.”

Fortunately, for every last error, there’s someone who loves to spot errors. I never get more mail than when I make a mistake. I also have close friends who love to correct my pronunciation and grammar, insisting I say “criterion” instead of “criteria,” or “infer,” not “imply.”

But lately there’s been a counterattack on overly strict grammar cops by some talented writers who argue we’re getting too fussy about language — the important thing is to communicate.

For example, respected British author and actor Stephen Fry blasted those who nitpick over apostrophes in an essay he called “Don’t Mind Your Language.”

Fry is uninterested in the difference between uninterested and disinterested and says you can infer what it means when someone mistakenly uses imply.

He rails against people who demand supermarkets take down cash register signs saying: “five items or less” (instead of ‘fewer’).

“You know what they mean,” says Fry. “Language changes and you just have to keep up with it.”

But none of this is an excuse for real errors when they’re stairing you in the face. So I’m sorry ghastly readers — er, Gazette readers.

From now on I’m going to get everything write.