Man, what a difference one letter can make.
If you’re near a computer keyboard or a typewriter, look at where the letters “w” and “t” are. They’re quite close together; only two keys separate them. And if you should confuse those two keys–or any two keys, depending on the context–it can cause problems.
This happened in a story we published last week, “A Night at the Triple-T.” The piece, about the Tucson Truck Terminal, discussed a number of characters at the famous truck stop. Two of these characters, both named Josh, are guys who work at the Triple-T servicing the incoming rigs. We referred to them as Josh2.
The story described Josh2 as two hard-working, likable guys. But later in the story, there was this incongruent sentence: “Josh2 is not hustling to fuel and check Allen Eberly’s 4-year-old Kenworth, with its classic paint job –”
That “not” should have been the word “now,” making the sentence read, “Josh2 is now hustling to fuel and check –”
Our apologies to Josh2 and the folks at the Tucson Truck Terminal for the typo. We’ve corrected the gaffe on our Web site, and are running a correction in the standard place at the end of our Mailbag section.
And to all you writers out there: Beware of the difference in meaning that one silly mistyped letter can cause.
This article appears in Jul 10-16, 2003.