The latest instagram Hashtag #WhatsYourSuperPower, really has nothing to do with the content of this post. The hashtag did get me thinking about the Superpower that I sorely lack – Proofreading……
As is probably apparent to anyone that reads my blog, I have a hard time proofreading. I mean, I proofread until I can’t stand the content anymore, but still I can’t seem to get it right.
I realized that one of my problems with proofreading is that as I am “reading”, I am not really reading the words on the screen, I am “reading” in my head what I know the piece is supposed to say, instead of really paying attention to the words that I actually typed on the page. I know I do this, but still halfway through I realize that I really haven’t paid a lot of attention to what I typed, so I start again and again, and again…..
It had to be about 10 years ago when I began to realize that my fingers are not typing what I am spelling in my head. The biggest offender is the word “because” – I do not know why. I reverse the letters, every single time. Knowing this, I make a conscious effort to spell it out in my head while typing but it makes no difference, it comes out “becasue”. There seems to be some sort of disconnect between my brain and my fingers. I do this with many words. Fortunately, spell-check will pick up words like “because”, but what about the reversed letters in words that are also words when reversed – like “Trial” and “Trail” (yes, I found that one after the post was published)? Spell-check does not help me there.
-Let’s talk about the anxiety of writing a post entitled “Because, Because, Because, Because………BEEEE CAUSE” – what was I thinking???
I believe I have always had some sort of disconnect in the spelling area. As a kid and still to this day, I can not spell out loud. In school, I always did very well on spelling tests, because I was writing the words, not spelling them out loud. When DC asks me to spell a word for him, if it is more than 5 or 6 letters, oftentimes I must write it. I seem to just lose my place when spelling out loud.
Then there are the little mistakes that drive me crazy – yes I do know the difference between “to” and “too”, but one might never know this after reading one of my posts. I am continuously going back and correcting things when I re-post or re-read a post. I tend to find them more easily in older posts because I haven’t just written them and I can read the words on the page instead of reading the words in my head. Also, when I decide to change a sentence or two while proofreading, there always seems to be a word from the original sentence left in the text. - sigh
There are many other blogs that I love and as much as love them and the content, I often find myself looking for their typos just to make myself feel better.
I have yet to find any……
Annoying……..
One might wonder why, with all of my typing, spelling and fleeting attention span issues, I would choose blogging as a hobby. Just another thing to drive myself crazy? Maybe. But I really do enjoy it and I hope that you can overlook the typos, missing words and letters.
Due to the fact that my mother does not like to go on-line, I put all of my posts into a photo book for her (you know, the books you can make through Snapfish or Photo Book Pop). I am technically just copying and pasting the text into the text areas of the page. The type is so small that I can not really read what is going in there, word-wise, I just hope for the best. Finding a typo in an old post that has already been added to one of the books, just makes me crazy! My initial reaction is to correct it and reorder the entire book, but that could begin to get really expensive, so …….
there they will stay, forever in print – mocking me………
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