By Dan Bloom
CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — Everyone knows what a ”typo” is, and we all make them from time to time, in emails and college term papers and in published ebooks. But what is an “atomic typo”?
I’ve been following the term for a few years now, and from I gather it’s an incorrect word in a text that a context-challenged spellcheck system is unable to detect because the spelling of the word — while not incorrect and therefore not technically a “typo” — it is just different from the actual word that was intended.
Examples are, for example, unclear for nuclear, former Florida Governor Chris for Governor Christ, sedan for Sudan.
The term “atomic typo” has been in use in computerized newsrooms and publishing offices for over ten years, although its use in common conversation and news articles is very rare. In fact, most newspaper language mavens, like the late William Safire of the New York Times, had never heard of it before it was brought to their attention by some interested parties.
Such typos are called “atomic typos” apparently because the mistake is very small, minute, just one or two letters in the wrong order or in the wrong place. Yet, the typo makes a big difference in the meaning.
C.F. Hanif, a former editorial ombudsman at the Palm Beach Post, used= this term in print one day in the early 2000s and it stuck. So all credit
goes to Mr Hanif for coming the term. (He has now left the newspaper business and serves as a Muslim imam in Florida.)
Dr Peter J. Farago, Editor of Chemistry World wittily presented observations on “Editing: Good and Bad, Necessary or Not.” He sees the purpose of an editor to be “grit in your oyster” and to avoid famous atomic typos such as “Unclear Physics.” Did he mean nuclear physics?
So have you spotted any good atomic typos recently? And can technology come up with an advanced spellcheck platform that could spot and
correct “atomic typos”?
I rather doubt it. We will always need the human eye. And mind.
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Bloom is Taiwan bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World as well as an inveterate web surfer. He may be contacted at dan.bloom@sdjewishworld.com