Do You Mean ‘Love’?
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A short text typo goes a long way
Although I didn’t realize it when it happened, one time I replied to a post with the comment, “Good work on this?"
I didn’t mean to add the question mark. What I meant to type was, “Good work on this!"
The two comments are completely different, of course. If you assume that nobody ever makes typographical errors when they type or send texts, then it becomes quite concerning.
This was not even an auto-complete mistake where the device types what it thinks it might want to say. Nothing like that. It was me typing too fast
Now the other party could have sent me a direct message about it and I would have fixed it in a hurry. They did not
A week goes by and they reply to the message string. I read it and then see my reply. Without hesitation, I edited out the question mark.
“Slow down," I said to myself. “And don’t let this happen again.
The other day, I saw a recipe that looked delicious and of course I felt compelled to add a comment.
“I live this," I wrote as a comment.
Then a minute later I saw my mistake.
“Do you mean ‘love,’ I asked myself.
Of course I guess I could live this if I had been referring to the lifestyle of growing those vegetables on the farm and harvesting corn. That’s another story because I hope that is in my future.
That reminds me of a professor I once knew in college. She always reminded students to proof-read both their school work and also their written product in the office.
She told the story about how a student had meant to write about public policy but had incorrectly typed pubic instead of public.
Luckily, the mistake was found and corrected before anyone was the wiser!
As a reminder, slow down with your typing and texting. Check your work and words before you press send. And if you mean to use the word love, then that’s quite all right and have a good day.
