Jeff Deck

The tale of a quixotic jaunt around the USA to correct typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors everywhere, this book is written in an uneasy amalgam of jocularity, anachronistic fustiness, and slightly muddled not-so-righteous indignation. It's also an odd little travelogue and buddy narrative that rattles along much of the book, to end in some unexpected (and well-deserved) negative consequences for the travelers.

The authors partly blame poor phonics instruction for some of the persistent errors people make, and further make the mistake of fixing upon the routinized, scripted chanted Direct Instruction model as a possible answer. Good phonics instruction does indeed make some spelling errors much less likely, but it's a lot more complicated than that.

However, the book is on the whole a diverting read, despite its flaws, and the stories of odd little encounters with shopkeepers and the musings on the ethics of correcting people's grammar make it worth reading.

I also didn't catch any unintended typos. Because I am someone who (a) learned to read with phonics, (b) is a visual reader, (c) taught middle school English, and (d) has been a voracious reader all her life, I can't avoid seeing any errors in my reading.… (més)

Jeff, an editor, decided that he would do some travelling around the US in 2008, in order to find and fix (whether subversively himself, or by asking) typos/errors on signs. He brought along friends with him as he made his way around the perimeter of the US for almost three months. He was armed with his Typo Correction Kit that he assembled himself and found that while some people were receptive to making the changes, others weren’t. In fact, by the time he got home again, he discovered that he was in some trouble for fixing one of the signs himself!

I really enjoyed this! There was some humour – I loved the “elixir of correction” (so as not to use a brand name) that he carried with him. There is an appendix at the end explaining some of the common errors. Jeff had a blog he kept going throughout his travels, but I’m sad to see that it no longer exists. There are some photos included interspersed throughout the book – photos of some before and after errors.… (més)

Jeff Deck is a member of what some sarcastically call the "Grammar Police," although in Deck's case publicly misspelled words seem to bother him even more than grammar abuse does. Keep in mind, too, that despite the less-than-kind remarks often directed at Deck and his fellow grammar cops, there are thousands of them out there. Odds are, you know one yourself - or, deep down in your heart, you are one. Deck and his friends, though, decided to take their policing to the next level.

Deck created the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL), planned a road trip of almost 12,000 miles that would take him across the country and back correcting typos, and recruited three friends who would share individual parts of the trip with him. Along the way, Jeff, Benjamin, Jane, and Josh would encounter every response imaginable from the people whose errors they asked permission to correct, including: indifference, belligerence, amusement, whole hearted support, and in one unfortunate case in which they failed to ask for permission before making a correction, being charged by the government for defacing federal property.

Ultimately though, TEAL's mission would develop into more than just a one-time road trip to correct grammatical and spelling mistakes on a few hundred grocery store, restaurant, and mall signs because Jeff and Benjamin began to realize that the real "point of the mission was to inspire other ordinary people to speak out when they see mistakes." As editors, they knew how important moving beyond the "first draft" is to the clarity of written communication - and that is the message they wanted to spread across the country, one correction at a time.

Those approached by the TEAL team were not the only ones to learn something from the encounters. Jeff and Benjamin, because of the variety of feedback and responses they received from those they approached, found that they had "taken a tour of basic human interactions." From their rather random sampling of humanity, they experienced the whole gamut of reactions from people suddenly faced with unexpected challenges and problems. The TEAL team, it is safe to say, learned as much from the trip as the people they spoke with along the way.

The subtitle to The Great Typo Hunt is "Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time" - a lofty goal, to be sure. Perhaps Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson did not, after all, change the world, but they changed themselves, and that may be the more important thing. Grammar policemen everywhere (and I use the term here in the most complimentary way possible) will enjoy this book. It is a little dryly written at times but it is a true adventure for Deck and Herson's fellow nerds, among whom I count myself.… (més)