OOPS! PROOFREADING DOES COUNT

The need for careful proofreading hit the headlines recently. The publisher Australian Penguin Group had to spend $18 000 reprinting 9 000 copies of a cook-book. The reason? One, yes one single word was spelled wrongly!

Many recipes in the Italian cook-book included the instruction to add "salt and freshly ground black pepper", but on one page, a recipe for tagliatelle, a pasta dish, the recipe read "salt and freshly ground black people."

Some readers complained to the company about the use of the words 'ground' and 'black people'; they complained that these words made the book sound racist. The company had to withdraw the book from sale and send the withdrawn books to be pulped- turned into paper porridge!

The publishers called the error, a 'silly mistake' and it seems to have been a simple, honest error. However, the audience for any published material are often quick to take offense or make judgments about errors.

And this week more books have had to be pulped because they had not been proof read. The publishers of American novelist, Jonathan Franzen's new novel had printed and started to sell the book when it was discovered that a draft of the book had been printed. There were only about 50 errors in the published book but that was enough for the publisher to withdraw the book and turn the 80 000 copies into paper porridge!

These events highlight the need for careful proofreading. It can save a lot of pain- and money!