A pleasant surprise at the checkout counter the other day:

Many thanks to Moeskido’s eagle eyes.

Vanity Fair’s edit of Sarah Palin’s resignation speech illustrates beautifully, in all its technicolor glory, the importance of competent writers, editors, and proofreaders (and research departments):

It’s all over Twitter already, but this really can’t get too much support:

“The most epic typo in the history of errors,” thanks to Schaffer the Darklord.

I’m in love with the pithy ending to the story as well.

Yeah, yeah, I know: I’m way behind on writing over here. I’m not proud. I’ll be back to it as soon as I can.

In the meantime, courtesy of my friend Susan, an amusing not-quite-typo:

To accompany an article about recent statements made by U2 manager Paul McGuinness, a photo of McGuinness with singer Bono was posted. It was a small photo, fairly innocuous. Only the person in the photo wasn’t Bono: it was Tony Russo from Unforgettable Fire, a U2 tribute band based in New York.

A funny error and probably a nice boost to Russo’s ego in itself. But wait, there’s more.

A few commenters to the story note that the man in the photo is not, in fact, Bono. In his defense the author links to another article on the same topic that uses the same photo, only this time the image of McGuinness and Not Bono is much larger and located below a photo of the actual Bono. This second article is a real convenience for comparison, but it also highlights how the man next to McGuinness more closely resembles Bono’s younger brother in borrowed shades than the Irish Vox himself. (Bono wishes he had cheeks that pinchable.)

Susan did some sleuthing and found that the Not Bono photo is the first result to pop up when one google-images (that’s a verb now) “Paul McGuinness.” The Russo-McGuinness image has been mislabeled as “bono paul mcguinness.jpg.”

As you can see, the photo in the first-cited article has since been changed to the second result that appears on Google Images. That man with McGuinness, luckily, is indeed the real Bono Vox standing up.

Moral of the story: the internet is a resource, not a source. Google doesn’t vet information; it indexes it: put bad information in, bad information comes right back out again. Primary and secondary sources can be found online, but so can tertiary, quaternary, and whatever-the-word-is-for-twentieth-ary; the key is to make the effort to determine which is which. Copying answers off someone else’s homework will only get you an A if the copyee’s answers are correct.

ETA: Another article with a photo of Not Bono to add to the collection.

ETA: And another, this article focusing more on Bono himself.

*****

Many thanks to Susan, the typographical Nancy Drew.

Part of what I do for a—I use this word with quotes so loud they ring—”living” is fix typos. On the whole, most typos won’t set your loins a-tingle, but every now and then one comes along that just makes a person smile.

Today’s typo of cheer comes from a “big“-thinking author posting on Twitter about his new book:

The Think Bi Manifesto will be available everywhere books are sold. It’s available for pre-order online at amazon, B&N & Borders

Now that’s a manifesto that I wholeheartedly endorse.