Look Before You Typo

EconFun

We face typographical errors (“typo” in slang) daily. Experts feel that this is a ‘fat finger syndrome’ which means an unwanted secondary action occurs while typing due to fat finger. According to them, when a finger is bigger than the touch zone, inaccuracies in the text might occur. But I am pretty sure that ‘haste’ and ‘auto-correction’ are the main causes of such errors. In the world of Çtrl + C and Ctrl + V, we forget to check the text which might cause great damage sometimes.

You are not alone. Many people, companies and nations have committed typos and have faced serious consequences. Let us glance at them:

On a Trip

One notable example took place in 2006. Alitalia Airlines offered business-class flights from Toronto to Cyprus for $39 instead of $3,900. 2,000 travellers took advantage of the lower rates before the mistake got corrected. The airline attempted to cancel the tickets purchased at $39 but failed due to public uproar. It eventually agreed to the price reduction as a goodwill gesture at an estimated cost exceeding $7.2 million.

Something for ‘Cheers’

eBay auction from 2007 listed an unopened 155-year-old bottle of Allsopp’s Arctic Ale, one of the rarest beers in the world. The antique bottle’s description was: “Allsop’s arctic ale. Full and corked with a wax seal.” The missing “p” in the name of the brewing company made it difficult for collectors to find the listing using the eBay keyword search function. The auction received only two unique offers and closed with a winning bid of $304. Eight weeks later, the winning bidder corrected the spelling and relisted the bottle with the updated description, “Museum Quality ALLSOPP’s ARCTIC ALE 1852 SEALED/FULL.” The second auction received a total of 157 offers and closed with a final selling price of more than half a million dollars.

A Naughty Mistake

In 1988, Banner Travel Services in Sonoma, California placed an ad in the Pacific Bell Yellow Pages promoting travel arrangements to exotic destinations. However, it substituted the “x” for an “r”, so that “exotic travel” became “erotic travel”. It lost reputation and nearly 80 percent of its customers because of the misprint. The agency sued the Yellow Pages for gross negligence and got more than $19 million as compensation.

In Democracy

In Oneida County, N.Y., 130,000 voter ballots misprinted Former USA President Barack Obama’s name. The ballots omitted the “c” from the President’s first name. This error cost over $75,000.

A Fatal Hyphen

The rocket carrying the Mariner 1 space probe exploded shortly after liftoff on July 22, 1962. NASA investigators found that omission of a single hyphen (or superscripted overbar) in the guidance control software was the cause of the accident. To launch a planetary expedition ahead of the Soviet Union and to establish spaceflight supremacy, the first American spacecraft destined to explore another planet failed miserably. The single missing FORTRAN coding symbol was not detected during preflight preparations which cost them over $620 million.

One with Racism

In 2010, an Australian book publisher released The Pasta Bible, a comprehensive recipe book. One of the dishes contained – freshly ground black pepper. Instead, it printed “freshly ground black people.” This sparked international outrage. The publisher lost $20,000 and recalled thousands of copies of the cookbook.

While Selling Shares

In December 2005, Mizuho Securities Co. (Japan) attempted to sell shares of a recruiting company on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Instead of offering single shares for 610,000 yen apiece, a typing error led to the sale of 610,000 shares for 1 yen apiece. In less than one day the company lost nearly $340 million. It is one of the costliest misprints ever.

‘Star’ Misprint of Bollywood

Most of us have watched the famous Hera Pheri movie (Hindi feature film released in 2000). The misprint in the directory which swapped the phone numbers of Star Fisheries with Star Garage was amazing. It turned the lives of the characters in the movie, which paved way for a sequel too.

Being ‘The-Rapist’

In 2010 The Irish Times cited a typing error in a medical publication that came close to libelling a therapist when it listed his occupation as “the rapist.”

Coinage Mistake

The national mint of Chile misspelt the name of its own country on a series of 50-peso denomination coins in 2008. More than 1.5 million coins bearing the name “CHIIE” were released into circulation and the error remained undetected for nearly a year. The managing director of the mint and several other employees lost their jobs.

Who Gains from Typos?

This website quotes the rates of misprinted old currency notes. The misprinted old currency notes are more valuable than their face value. Another website quotes, “The good news is that misprinted one dollar bills do offer a good bang for the buck. The value over face value is always tremendous when compared to the same error on a high denomination. So if you have a misprint on a one dollar bill, strike while the iron is hot.” It stated that severity and rarity of the misprint is the major driving factor of the value of misprinted money.

A team of researchers at Harvard University has found that Google earns $497 million every year from people mistyping website URLs.

Takeaway

Publishers of books and newspapers employ many proofreaders and editors to convey ideas in a proper way and correct form. The total costs of misprints should also include an opportunity cost of proofreaders. Even after thorough proofreading and reviewing some mistakes go unnoticed and ultimately incorrigible.

The only person getting richer by our errors might be Google. Otherwise, a small negligence can cost huge to us and others. A major takeaway is that we must check our work before putting an official seal. So, make sure you look before and after you type.

– Swapnil Karkare

Find more amazing reads (my sources) on typos on –

https://www.six-degrees.com/the-high-cost-of-small-mistakes-the-most-expensive-typos-of-all-time/

http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1112/3-costly-spelling-errors.aspx

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/extreme-cost-typos/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/us/oxford-comma-lawsuit.html?_r=1

http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/misprint-will-cost-harrah-millions-1006147.php

http://q13fox.com/2015/01/05/man-told-500000-winning-lottery-ticket-is-a-misprint-video/

http://wtf.thebizzare.com/offbeat/people-and-society/the-worlds-most-expensive-typos/

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/stock-trade-typo-costs-firm-225m/

http://allegrowines.blogspot.in/2015/11/the-cost-of-typoor-how-important-it-is.html

http://www.cracked.com/article_18517_the-7-most-disastrous-typos-all-time.html