Thank you so much, fellow confessors! It was fun, therapeutic, and a little painful reading about your gaffes and lapses. Many of them sound familiar: spelling-check errors, overlooked homophones, misguided global corrections, and those goofs that are simply too huge to catch. The most cringe-worthy are perhaps the ones we introduce ourselves in a moment of mental vacation.
4ndyman wins the copy of Moonlight Blogger! A random number picker landed on your confession, but that “Foreward” for “Foreword” goof especially tickled me because I’ve done it myself—twice. The last time was years ago; I’m hopeful that the resulting trauma will continue to prevent me from doing it again.
I’d also like to thank all you great sinners for your generous and courteous responses. I love this community of editors and writers who defy the stereotype of the gotcha, nitpicking comma jockey. Anyone reading your copyediting confessions can see that you regret them. You care about the work and about the reader—but you also have some perspective and a sense of humor. You’ve learned as I have that in copyediting, as in life in general, that’s the way to live.
