
A typographical error (often shortened to typo), also called a misprint, is a mistake (such as a spelling or
transposition error) made in the
typing
Typing is the process of writing or inputting text by pressing keys on a typewriter, computer keyboard, mobile phone, or calculator. It can be distinguished from other means of text input, such as handwriting recognition, handwriting and speech ...
of printed or electronic material. Historically, this referred to mistakes in manual
typesetting
Typesetting is the composition of text for publication, display, or distribution by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or '' glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other ...
. Technically, the term includes errors due to mechanical failure or slips of the hand or finger, but excludes ''errors of ignorance'', such as
spelling errors, or changing and misuse of words such as "than" and "then". Before the arrival of
printing, the copyist's mistake or scribal error was the equivalent for
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...
s. Most typos involve simple duplication, omission, transposition, or substitution of a small number of characters.
"Fat finger" typing (especially in the financial sector) is a
slang
A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...
term referring to an unwanted secondary action when typing. When a finger is bigger than the touch zone, with
touchscreen
A touchscreen (or touch screen) is a type of electronic visual display, display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device (a touch panel) and an output device (a visual display). The touch panel is typically l ...
s or
keyboards, there can be inaccuracy and one may hit two keys in a single keystroke. An example is ''
buckled'' instead of ''
bucked'', due to the "L" key being next to the "K" key on the
QWERTY keyboard, the
most common keyboard for
Latin-script alphabet
A Latin-script alphabet (Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet) is an alphabet that uses Letter (alphabet), letters of the Latin script. The 21-letter archaic Latin alphabet and the 23-letter classical Latin alphabet belong to the oldest of this gr ...
s.
Marking typos
Typesetting
Historically, the process of converting a
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...
to a printed document required a
typesetter to copy the text and print a first "galley proof" (familiarly, "a proof"). It may contain typographical errors ("printer's errors"), as a result of human error during typesetting. Traditionally, a
proofreader compares the manuscript with the corresponding typeset portion, and then marks any errors (sometimes called "line edits") using
standard proofreaders' marks.
Typing

When using a
typewriter
A typewriter is a Machine, mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of Button (control), keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an i ...
without
correction tape, typos were commonly
struck out with another character such as a
strikethrough
Strikethrough, or strikeout, is a typographical presentation of words with a horizontal line through their center, resulting in , sometimes an X or a forward slash is typed over the top instead of using a horizontal line. Strike-through was u ...
. This saved the typist the trouble of retyping the entire page to eliminate the error, but as evidence of the typo remained, it was not aesthetically pleasing.
Correction fluid was invented to hide the original mark and allow the typist to correct the error almost invisibly.
Word processing A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features.
Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicate ...
software all but eliminated the need for this solution.
Social media
In computer forums, sometimes "^H" (a visual representation of the
ASCII
ASCII ( ), an acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for representing a particular set of 95 (English language focused) printable character, printable and 33 control character, control c ...
backspace
Backspace (, ⌫) is the keyboard key that in typewriters originally pushed the carriage one position backwards, and in modern computer systems typically moves the display cursor one position backwards,The meaning of "backwards" depends on the dir ...
character) was used to "
erase" intentional typos: "Be nice to this fool^H^H^H^Hgentleman, he's visiting from corporate HQ."
In
instant messaging, users often send messages in haste and only afterward notice the typo. It is common practice to correct the typo by sending a subsequent message in which an
asterisk
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star.
Computer scientists and Mathematici ...
(*) is placed before (or after) the correct word.
Textual analysis
In formal prose, it is sometimes necessary to quote text containing typos or other doubtful words. In such cases, the author will write "
'sic''">sic.html" ;"title="'sic">'sic'' to indicate that an error was in the original quoted source rather than in the transcription.
Scribal errors
Scribal errors receive much attention in the context of textual criticism. Many of these mistakes are not specific to manuscripts and can be referred to as typos. Some classifications include homeoteleuton and homeoarchy (skipping a line due to the similarity of the ending or beginning),
haplography
Haplography (from Greek: haplo- 'single' + -graphy 'writing'), also known as lipography (from Greek: lip- from leipein 'to leave/to omit' + -graphy 'writing'), is a scribal error, scribal or typographical error where a letter or group of letters th ...
(copying once what appeared twice),
dittography
Dittography is the accidental, erroneous act of repeating a letter, word, phrase or combination of letters by a scribe or copyist. The term is used in the field of textual criticism, especially in critical studies of ancient or biblical literature ...
(copying twice what appeared once), contamination (introduction of extraneous elements), metathesis (reversing the order of some elements), unwitting mistranscription of similar elements, mistaking similar looking letters, the substitution of
homophones, fission and fusion (joining or separating words).
Biblical errors

The
Wicked Bible omits the word "not" in the
commandment, "
thou shalt not commit adultery".
The
Judas Bible is a copy of the second
folio edition of the
Authorized Version, printed by
Robert Barker, printer to
James VI and I
James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 M ...
, in 1613, and given to the church for the use of the Mayor of Totnes. This edition is known as the ''Judas Bible'' because in
Matthew 26:36 "
Judas" appears instead of "
Jesus
Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
". In this copy, the mistake is corrected with a slip of paper pasted over the misprint.
Intentional typos
Certain typos, or kinds of typos, have acquired widespread notoriety and are occasionally used deliberately for humorous purposes. For instance, the British newspaper ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' is sometimes referred to as ''The Grauniad'' due to its reputation for frequent typesetting errors in the era before computer typesetting. This usage began as a running joke in the satirical magazine ''
Private Eye''. The magazine continues to refer to ''The Guardian'' by this name.
Typos are common on
social media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...
, and some—such as "
teh", "
pwned", and "
zomg"—have become
in-joke
An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke with humour that is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest ...
s among Internet groups and subcultures.
P0rn is not a typo but an example of
obfuscation
Obfuscation is the obscuring of the intended meaning of communication by making the message difficult to understand, usually with confusing and ambiguous language. The obfuscation might be either unintentional or intentional (although intent ...
, where people make a word harder for filtering software to understand while retaining its meaning to human readers.
In
mapping, it was common practice to include
deliberate errors so that copyright theft could be identified.
Typosquatting
Typosquatting is a form of
cybersquatting that relies on typographical errors made by users of the Internet. Typically, the cybersquatter will register a likely typo of a frequently-accessed
website address in the hope of receiving traffic when internet users mistype that address into a
web browser
A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...
. Deliberately introducing typos into a web page, or into its
metadata
Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:
* Descriptive ...
, can also draw unwitting visitors when they enter these typos in
Internet search engines.
An example of this is
gogole.com
instead of
google.com
which could potentially be harmful to the user.
Typos in online auctions
Since the emergence and popularization of
online auction sites such as
eBay, misspelled auction searches have quickly become lucrative for people searching for deals. The concept on which these searches are based is that, if an individual posts an auction and misspells its description and/or title, regular searches will not find this auction. However, a search that includes misspelled alterations of the original search term in such a way as to create misspellings, transpositions, omissions, double strikes, and wrong key errors would find most misspelled auctions. The resulting effect is that there are far fewer bids than there would be under normal circumstances, allowing the searcher to obtain the item for less. A series of third-party websites have sprung up allowing people to find these items.
Atomic typos
Another kind of typo—informally called an "atomic typo"—is a typo that happens to result in a correctly spelled word that is different from the intended one. Since it is spelled correctly, a simple
spellchecker cannot find the mistake. The term was used at least as early as 1995 by Robert Terry.
A few illustrative examples include:
* "now" instead of "not",
* "unclear" instead of "nuclear"
* "you" instead of "your"
* "
Sudan
Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...
" instead of "
Sedan" (leading to a diplomatic incident in 2005 between Sudan and the United States regarding
a nuclear test code-named Sedan)
* instead of "United States"
* "the" instead of "they"
and many more. For any of these, the converse is also true.
See also
*
*
*
*
*
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*
*
*
*
*
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of Typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...
the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. Typographers design pages; traditionally, typesetters "set" the type to accord with that design.
References
{{Reflist, 30em
External links
BookErrata.comon famous typos, in ''
The Millions''
Error
Typing
Typography
Printing terminology
Nonstandard spelling