Typos Change Everything (A Game of Thongs, Anyone?)
We’ve all experienced it: reading a book with an overabundance of typographical and grammatical errors. I read a lot of self-published releases, and I recently read a novel with a grammatical error in the title! There it was—right on the cover in huge letters for all the world to see!
It’s incredibly frustrating to read a book filled with mistakes, but sometimes the errors can unintentionally alter—sometimes comically—the significance of a sentence. Here’s an excerpt from another self-published novel I read a few months back. The lack of a comma makes this serious sentence quite hilarious!
“We’re going to raise up your bed so you can eat Mister Fulton.”
One misspelled word or misplaced punctuation mark can change everything. Don’t believe me? Here is what happens when some current bestsellers and classics titles have “oopsies” in their titles…
• The Butter: A Witness to History by Wil Haygood
• The Bong Season by Samantha Shannon
• The Stank by Stephen King
• City of Asses by Cassandra Clare
• Elven Rings by Phil Jackson
• The Liver by Lois Lowry
• Baked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
• A Game of Thongs by George R.R. Martin
• A Dunce with Dragons by George R. R. Martin
• The Massage by Justin Cronin
• Doctor Sheep by Stephen King
• Kilting Jesus by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
• Animal Fart by George Orwell
• Of Mace and Men by John Steinbeck
• The Wise Man’s Rear by Patrick Rothfuss
• Dung by Frank Herbert
• As I Lay Drying by William Faulkner
• Invisible Van by Ralph Ellison
• Starship Poopers by Robert A. Heinlein
• The Drapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Lord of the Fries by William Golding
• Pickle Me, Elmo by David Prebenna
So the next time you run across an error in a book, rein in your irritation for a moment—it could actually make the read more entertaining!
Add your typo-ed title in the comments!