Today I want to give you a little advice. Proofread your email before you hit send.
Yesterday I wrote an email to someone. I didn’t proofread it before I hit send and I made a terrible typo.
Somehow instead of typing the woman’s name, which was Morgan I typed moron.
Hello Moron,
I was so embarrassed and she was very offended. I can’t say I blame her.
This all reminded me of a typo I made a couple of years ago in an article on abortion. In the article I wrote contraception instead of conception.
“I believe that there is a human life forming from the moment of contraception conception.”
Advice: When you’re done composing a message, email or blog comment, make sure that you have taken the time to proofread it for possible typos or grammatical errors.
Read your message twice even three times if you have to before hitting that send or submit button.
I hope you learned something from this very embarrassing experience of mine.
Never get in too much of a rush not to proofread.
Proofreading may just protect you from embarrassment and having to clarify.
Rose DesRochersRose wears many hats. She's a wife, mother, respite worker, proud shih-tzu owner, blogger, published poet, freelance writer, as well as the owner and administrator of Today's Writing Community and Blogger Talk Blog Community. Feel free to contact her with any questions you may have.Rose DesRochers has 1216 post(s) at Rose DesRochers – World Outside My Window
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31 responses so far ↓
Wrote: Jan 29, 2010 at 1:00 am
Oh Rose, isn’t that an awful feeling when you see it AFTER you’ve hit send! I used to work in publishing and one day an editor flew into the room in a panic to have a typo fixed. The word should have been public, but instead it was pubic.
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Rose DesRochers Reply:
January 29th, 2010 at 1:17 am
ROFL…. Now that’s funny.
I went to type my son fell asleep studying and I typed studding by mistake. Thankfully I caught that.
Wrote: Jan 29, 2010 at 4:29 am
Ha ha ha ha! It’s funny because it didn’t happen to me.
Poor, Rose. You seem to have been having a rough time on line lately.
Wrote: Jan 29, 2010 at 8:49 am
Thanks for this advice Rose. I usually proofread my article as well as email, even comment, may be because my English is not enough good which force me to check my writing each time.
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Wrote: Jan 29, 2010 at 10:26 am
Good article. I think this line best sums up your post: “Never get in too much of a rush not to proofread.” It’s better to spend 5 minutes proofreading than being embarrassed for eternity.
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Wrote: Jan 29, 2010 at 11:54 am
I can’t help but chuckle a little at the error although I understand how Morgan would be offended. I proofread many times and still miss things. It happens.
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Wrote: Jan 29, 2010 at 12:07 pm
There are so many examples of such newspaper typos, books have been written praising them.
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Wrote: Jan 29, 2010 at 3:53 pm
I’ve been calling Sire “Sage” over and over again in posts and comments.
I never thought of feeling embarrassed about it though.
I just figured it was his fault for not calling himself Sage in the first place..
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Wrote: Jan 29, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Why do I continue to believe that I don’t mistype? You are so right. You can’t proofread enough. Ideally you get someone else to do it.
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Rose DesRochers Reply:
January 30th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
Want to proofread my post? lol
Wrote: Jan 30, 2010 at 11:32 am
This has happened to all of us — blogging or communications war stories. Still you’re right to remind us! If it’s worth writing, it’s worth writing correctly. I do rely too much on those helpful ‘red underlines’ in my browser to flag typos! The horror happens when the inappropriate word is spelled correctly. We only see it AFTER posting the comment. But then I blame the blog owner for not have a preview and 60 second edit feature. LOL just kidding.
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Rose DesRochers Reply:
January 30th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
LOl Pass the blame.
Wrote: Jan 30, 2010 at 12:30 pm
This was funny!
I can totally relate to this (I think we all can).
One time I sent an email to a guy friend of mine complaining about a mutual woman friend. Wouldn’t you know it – I actually sent it to the woman and she read what I said about her. Yikes! Did I ever learn from that lesson, re-reading emails before hitting the send button is very important.
Karen
Rose DesRochers Reply:
January 30th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
That was a big opps. I hope everything worked out between you both?
Wrote: Jan 30, 2010 at 7:57 pm
I’ve made mistakes like that before Rose, which is why I’ve added a plugin to help people edit their comment once it’s published as it’s only then that you realized that you stuffed up.
I still make mistakes though because I am always in such a rush and a lot of the time I do forget to proofread.
Sire´s last blog..Blogging, It’s Not What You Say But How You Say It
Rose DesRochers Reply:
January 30th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
I think that being in a rush is my biggest problem too.
Wrote: Jan 30, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Oh, I can add another one to that. Double check WHO you are actually sending an email to before you hit send!! Several years ago I received an email from my ex-MIL that pushed my buttons, and I forwarded it to a friend with some comments that were less than kind about my MIL. As soon as I hit send, I realized that I didn’t remember seeing my friend’s name in the “TO” area, and that’s when I realized that… I had hit ‘reply” instead of “forward.” I tried to recall the message, but it was too late. I can justify my comments in the email all I want, and while they might have been valid, I was (and still am) mortified that it went back to my MIL.
Hard lesson learned…
Rose DesRochers Reply:
January 30th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
That would be a hard lesson learned.
I’ve actually had that happen to me, but I was on the receiving end of the unkind things.
Wrote: Jan 30, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Reminds me of the time I used to work in a bank. One of the young clerks had opened an a/c for a customer and had brought the new a/c application to me for checking. I asked the clerk what the customer’s occupation was… “warehouse operator” the only problem was that he’d added a `h’ and his `a’ looked like an `o’… “whorehouse operator”.
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Rose DesRochers Reply:
January 30th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
That’s funny! My daughter had a speech impediment when she was younger. Once we were in the car with a minster and instead of pointing to a horse calling it a horse she called it a whore.
Wrote: Jan 31, 2010 at 3:55 am
I’m famous for missing my moronic typos- unless I wait a few hours, then go back to read again. My eyes tend to fill in what I want it to say, n not what it does. The faster the typing, the more boo-boos too… I do proof read everything, but can still miss it!
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Wrote: Jan 31, 2010 at 8:13 am
I’ll most definitely be paying close attention to whatever I write as from now on though it would be like feeding my compulsiveness. ;(
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Wrote: Jan 31, 2010 at 9:13 am
I am notorious for making typos, but we are human so it comes with the territory.
Wrote: Jan 31, 2010 at 9:29 am
I suppose it depends on the thing. In my blog, I find typos in my own text too often. I see it in others’, even yours, Rose, but I’ve taken not to suggest correction unless the meaning is unclear. Though I did suggest a change when the Title was misspelled, only because that title will hang out in the RSS feed.
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Rose DesRochers Reply:
January 31st, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Feel free to point out typos or spelling errors Roger. I really don’t mind.
Wrote: Jan 31, 2010 at 7:14 pm
@Rose DesRochers:
Yes, she forgave me, but I was really embarassed. I learned from last lesson, believe me
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Wrote: Feb 1, 2010 at 11:17 am
The problem with proofreading your own works, is you will often go over the same text many times and not see the mistakes. That is why many publishing companies have a separate proofreading department.
That said, sans having a proofreading department, read your article backwards, after reading it forwards, and you will find more mistakes than if y0u read it from the front only.
Wrote: Feb 1, 2010 at 2:11 pm
@Don: The problem with proofreading your own works, is you will often go over the same text many times and not see the mistakes.
This is the same issue I’m having with proofreading my blog posts. Despite the amount of times, I go over them, some errors slip through and don’t get detected until a week or more after the post has gone live.
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Rose DesRochers Reply:
February 1st, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Udegbunam, I have the same problem. Someone pointed out to me a couple errors in a post yesterday. I reviewed the post and found several more. Eek!
Wrote: Feb 3, 2010 at 9:31 pm
I work for a legal services firm as an administrative assistant and the law firms we work for are sticklers for having every piece of communication perfect. Believe me, you don’t want to be on the phone with an angry attorney over some misspelled word.
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Wrote: Feb 5, 2010 at 1:04 am
I type fairly often and make mistakes pretty much constantly! I practically keep a finger on the backspace button at all times! It used to take me forever to write a report for school because I was always having to go back and fix mistakes.
Haven’t really had the problem with sending an e-mail to the wrong person yet (knock on wood!), but I’m waiting for that day when I have to backpedal and do some damage control!