Typos

A poem of mine that recently appeared in an online journal contained a rather glaring typo—for some reason the editors misspelled my name in both the table of contents and on the page where the piece appeared. Oddly enough, my name was spelled correctly in the accompanying bio. I went back and checked all the documents I had submitted through their submission system, as well as an electronic contract that they had asked me to fill out and sign.  My name was spelled correctly on everything.

     I have had several pieces published both on-line and in print over the years that contained typos, but this seems to be occurring with increasing frequency of late. In a couple of cases, I actually submitted something with a typo in it and it was accepted without the editor noticing the typo before it was published. On another occasion, I discovered a typo in the original manuscript after it was submitted and accepted. I notified the editor who was working on the piece, and she thanked me for bringing it to her attention and assured me that it would be corrected before publication. It wasn’t.

     Recently, what I have found to be even more common are typos introduced by the editors themselves during editing (things like substituting a homophone for a word that I used properly, changing punctuation or italics but not taking out the original ones, improper capitalization or removal of diacritics [especially in Spanish phrases], and simply leaving out a word or line). Typos in a piece of writing are hardly something to get upset about, considering the many other things that I deal with in daily life, and especially bearing in mind the state of the world at large. As my mother used to say, “What does it matter in the light of eternity?” I only wish to comment on the proliferation of typos in published work (especially on-line) in the hope that editors might be more aware of it—not to say that most aren’t already aware—and to consider always taking the extra step of giving contributors an opportunity to proofread their work before it is published. This isn’t a perfect solution, but it is a good tool to catch those minor errors that can slip past a busy editor’s eyes, especially things like having one’s name misspelled.

(Update: After a little back and forth with the editors, the misspelling of my name that originally occasioned this post was eventually—and fully—corrected by them, which I am sincerely grateful for.)

Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe

 

I recently went through a situation where I was trying to correct a mistake I had made that threatened to seriously impact the life and health of an innocent third person. Making it right involved dealing with several bureaucratic nightmares, and I experienced an enormous amount of frustration and anxiety. I felt that I had to fix the situation by hook or by crook—I had, after all, caused it by my carelessness—and it meant plenty of complaining on my part, a shortage of kindness and patience, and a basic neglect of trust in God.

     As I reflected today on a particular incident in that beautiful account of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Nican Mopohua, I was reminded of this moral lapse on my part, basically the result of a lack of faith. I thought about Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, who received the visions of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and who, after failing twice to convince the bishop of Mexico of the reality of his visions, was to meet with her and receive a sign from her that the bishop had requested as proof of the genuineness of Juan’s visions. In the story, Juan’s uncle falls ill before this all-important meeting, and believing that his uncle is dying, Juan sets out to a nearby town to fetch a priest who can give his uncle the Last Rites. He doesn’t want to be delayed, so he deliberately attempts to avoid running into the Virgin by traveling on the opposite side of the hill where he was supposed to meet her. Rather than simply going to her, as he had already promised, and asking for her help, he thinks that he should handle the situation with his uncle by himself, depending on his own efforts. Of course, the Virgin Mary meets him on the detour, and she gently reproves him, assuring him in a most loving way that she is his Mother, and he is always under her care and protection. She tells him that his uncle is cured of his illness, and she gives him the sign to take to the bishop, which proves to be greater than anything he or the bishop expected. Although Juan thought he was doing the right thing by trying to hurry and obtain a priest before his uncle died, it led him to neglect the person who could most help his uncle. But the Virgin Mary comes to his and his uncle’s aid despite his lack of faith in her, as her love is greater than Juan’s folly. I, too, in times of trouble, need to remember that Mary’s intercession is more powerful than anything I can do on my own. That is not to say that I was wrong in trying to fix the situation I had created, but if I had just trusted and had faith and acted in a more considerate and patient manner through it all, the positive results (which were, like everything I have ever received in other seemingly hopeless situations, a clear gift of God) would have been achieved with greater peace in my heart and without so much regrettable behavior.

     Because God loves us, he gives us his mother to protect and care for us, and all we need to do is to trust in that love in all our trials and tribulations.