The typographical error
Is a slippery thing and sly.
You can hunt till you are dizzy,
But somehow it will get by,

Till the forms are off the presses,
It is strange how still it keeps.
It shrinks down into a corner
And never stirs or peeps.

That typographical error,
Too small for human eyes,
Till the ink is on the paper
Then it grows to mountain-size.

The editor stares in horror,
Then he grabs his hair and groans.
The copy reader drops his head
Upon his hands and moans.

The remainder of the issues
May be clean as clean can be,
But that typographical error
Is the only thing you see!

It is as hard to correct a typographical error as it is to unring a bell, put toothpaste back in
a tube, put a genie back in a bottle, or stuff lava back into an erupted volcano. The typographical
terrors that follow turn newspaper editors into typochondriacs:

“INJURED?,” blares a headline in an ad. “We Can Help You” The pitch goes on to offer
“24-Hour Service. Free Consultation. No Fee Until Successful, Proven Results.” But then the
lawyers end their pitch with their Freudian slips showing: “Representing the Seriously Insured.”

A baby announcement concluded with an unfortunate misspelling that demonstrated how
the inadvertent substitution of a single letter can totally reverse meaning: “The happy parents
have the congratulations of all on this suspicious event.”

Ah, the difference a letter or two can make:

• An in-debt discussion of the new tax laws is now on line.
• He received his graduate degree in unclear physics.
• The defendant was charged with carless driving.
• Taylor Frey led the Cougars with eight tickles.
• A registered nurse will explain how to look for signs of breast cancer, and another
  representative will show you how to examine your elf for cancer of the testicles.
• Diane’s wedding drew a terrific crowd, including Sally Bates, who everybody thought was a broad.
• Walter and Rebecca Hill announce the coming marriage of their daughter Helene. No mate has been selected for the wedding.
• One can peek in most any evening on this homeloving young actress and find her                      cuddled up in an easy chair with a good boob before a crackling log fire
• Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and place the foot in it. It will be ready in one hour.
• Personable petite SWF looking to meet a well-balanced SWM with good, old-fashioned valves.
• If you feel strongly about any particular subject, why not write to the Gazette about it? We prefer discussion about local, rather than rational, topics.

Even when a newspaper staff discovers that it has splattered egg on its pages, the cleanup
operation can be embarrassingly messy, as witness these so-called corrections:

• Our paper carried the notice last week that Mr. Oscar Hoffnagle is a defective on the police
  force. This was a typographical error. Mr. Hoffnagle is, of course, a detective on the police
  farce.
• It was incorrectly reported last Friday that today is T-shirt Appreciation Week. It is actually
  Teacher Appreciation Week.
• Yesterday we mistakenly reported that a talk was given by a battlescared hero. We apologize
  for the error. We obviously meant that the talk was given by a bottlescarred hero.
• In a recent edition we referred to the chairman of Chrysler Corporation as Lee Iacooccoo.
  His real name is Lee Iacacca. The Gazette regrets the error.
• The marriage of Freda Van Amburg and William Branton, which was announced in this
  paper a few weeks ago, was a mistake we wish to correct.

***

A palindrome is a word (“level”), compound (“race car”), or sentence (“Madam, I’m
Adam”) that reads the same forward and backward. A calindrome is a date that does the same
thing. This month is crammed with ten calindromes — 5/2/25, 5/20/25, 5/21/25, 5/22/25,
5/23/25, 5/24/25, 5/25/25, 5/26/25, 5/27/25, 5/28/25, and 5/29/25.