Customer Reviews

The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time

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The Great Typo Hunt is the hilarious tale of the adventures and misadventures encountered on a quixotic cross-country trek to correct grammar and spelling mistakes. Over-the-top heroic tone and witty wordplay make this book endlessly amusing, without detracting from the larger point the authors are trying to make about the importance of clear and coherent communication. An overall fun read that will change the way you look at typos.

The Great Typo Hunt is a fantastic read that honestly had me laughing out loud at times (usually on a crowded bus or train). It's a road trip story of two friends who have a crazy idea: drive around the country correcting typos. Their adventures and the typos they find along the way not only make you laugh but also make you want to cry at what some of these mistakes say about the American population. They found over 400 typos on their trip and learned a lot about society along the way. A part that really resonated with me was when they discussed people's innate fear of looking stupid. Many people along the way would rather leave the sign incorrect then admit that they had made an error. They discussed how people sometimes limit their written vocabulary in an attempt to hide their lack of understanding about spelling and grammar. As a young child I remember being told that I could never be smart because I was a bad speller. An even now, as an adult with an BA from an Ivy league institution and an MBA from one of the top business schools in the country, I still find myself dumbing down emails, texts, Facebook posts, and even book review posts in an attempt to hide my inability to spell. That section not only shook me to the core but made me realize that I was not alone. Trust me, something about this book will resonate with you. And if nothing else, you will certainly understand proper apostrophe usage and you will become aware of the immense amount of typos that exist in the written text you pass by every day. If you like travel, adventure, or even grammar, this book is a great read and will have you discussing it with friends for days.

For me, it's the plural with an unnecessary apostrophe. The sign at the grocery says: "Apple's." I notice the mistake, sigh, and pass by. Not Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson, though. They are the founding members of TEAL, the Typo Eradication Advancement League, helpful strangers (call them "grammar vigilantes" at your peril) who wander into town, spot the signs with misspellings or bad punctuation, and make corrections. They did this as a mission throughout our land, traveling from one coast to another with their trusty Wite-Out, chalk, pens, crayons, and dry-erase markers of every hue. Sometimes the strangers got a thank you for their helpful corrections. Sometimes they got scorn. And one set of corrections was made into a federal case against them. The rousing, funny, and instructive story is told in _The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time_ (Crown Publishers), written in Deck's first person but with both credited as authors. In 2007, a college reunion got Deck to thinking about what he had accomplished in his life. He had just returned from his five-year reunion at Dartmouth College, embarrassed by his lack of post-graduate accomplishment; he had been an editor, and an administrative assistant for an office that studied climate change, but he wasn't having much effect on the world. And then, walking outside his apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts, he got a sign: "PRIVATE PROPERTY - NO TRESSPASSING" it said. He'd seen it before, but that extra S hadn't bothered him so much. "What if I were to step forward and do something?" he asked himself.

The answer: "Typo hunting was the good that I, Jeff Deck, was uniquely suited to visit upon society." (The mock heroic language breaks in frequently, emphasizing and at the same time deprecating the quest.) Initially, they made some "stealth corrections," changes on signs made without permission. During the quest, however, they realized that this was not a fair way to make a change nor to educate; the TEAL position is that changes can be made only after asking permission. It doesn't always work. In a restaurant in Manchester, New Hampshire, "Gorganzola" was listed on a chalkboard menu, a small error that would have been easily repaired by simply rubbing out the little tail on the "a" to make it an "o." But they get a response that is literally, "So who says it is wrong?... Why should I fix it? Because you say so?" The manager does not accept the need for a change, and says with sarcasm in farewell, "We'll be _sure_ to take care of that for you." Often, however, the correctees were agreeable and even appreciative. "All I had to do was ask," Deck declares of many of his encounters. In a tourist trap in Arizona, they can't do anything about a typo in a neon sign ("I didn't have any spare glass tubing handy for the rechanneling of inert gases"), but a sign in the window of the restaurant offered "stawbery," "lemonaide," and decafinated coffee." The server at the restaurant was grateful that the boys were going to fix the sign themselves, but had to be reassured that she would not be charged for the service. A shoe store sign said that it was "Now in it's 16th year," and it had said that for so long that the dry-erase marker had become unerasable. The boys are delighted when the employee to whom they showed the correction borrows a marker from their Typo Correction Kit, and turns the offending apostrophe into a little star, and makes other little stars around the sign. "Dude," said Herson, "that was freaking amazing." In New Orleans, a blackboard outside a restaurant mentioned "Thrusday" and the employee to whom they showed it was amused, as was the one who chalked the error, as were other employees. They were amused, too, to learn of the mission of TEAL, and not only did they have a good laugh about it all, they gave the boys a prize for pointing out the mistake, a bumper sticker that said "Time flies when you're having rum."

The authors succeeded in being polite in all their exchanges; this may be because of a self-effacing attitude that charmingly shows up in Deck's episodic doubts of the value of his mission. The big issues take the book out of the category of picaresque lark. What if English is always changing and there are no pure forms? Should grammarians be interested in legislating what forms are good or bad, or should they be content with describing how people are using English to get their points across? Questions of how we learn and how we communicate get taken in stride. When Deck gets to wondering not only what difference does a little apostrophe out of place make, but what difference can TEAL make in the larger picture of good grammar and a better-organized cosmos, Herson reassures him that a typo mistake "... is a controllable thing that reflects on the store..." That, and good punctuation means clearer communication, and while an apostrophe out of place might not even be noticed by the majority of viewers, it cannot help in a sign's effort to get communication across. The costly federal case against the crusaders does not dismay them, and after a legally-enforced year of hibernation, they are back at work, and enlisting others to help. They have learned that typos can be found in every section of the country, in all socioeconomic levels; there is no real pattern: "Everyone can use an editor," they say. There is a pattern of errors, though, with that unnecessary apostrophe being the most frequent, followed by the necessary apostrophe which has been omitted, followed by the classic confusion of "its" and "it's." You will come away from this book with a better understanding of the errors, and perhaps less of a tendency to make them yourself. There is little judgmentalism here, and just a little didacticism, and a great deal of mirth along the road. It's a trip worth taking.

It is unfortunate that the co-authors were unable to take a marker to the Publishers Weekly Review to eradicate the subject-verb agreement error ("Is correct commas...?") and the sentence fragment ("...anecdotes. Though..."). Obviously, errors are rampant. Oh, the irony! To me, this typo eradication campaign is more important that any of the fall elections. Good for you, guys!

Anyone who has ever groaned over the incorrect usage of its/it's, there/their/they're, or you're/your will love this adventurous recounting of two guys doing what most of us only inwardly complain about: fixing typos, spelling and grammar across the country. Deck and Herson are spokespeople for every one of us who has ever thought "how could someone make such an egregious error?!"

I will confess I wish I had had the authors' free time, cash, and chutzpah when I was their age! That said, the account of their undertaking bothered me on two counts. Firstly, despite the fact that Mr. Deck portrays himself as meek and essentially non-confrontational, all the interviews and the website - not to mention the writing of the book itself - would indicate that he quite likes attention. He avidly and actively sought the spotlight, which makes me question his alleged dedication to editing, i.e., typo eradication. Secondly, the writing was sluggish and pedantic, seriously undermining my enjoyment of the heroes' adventures. From the first page I yearned for a flowing narrative, rather than the wordy, clunky prose that prevailed. Perhaps if Mr. Deck had spent less time pursuing coverage of his quest, he would have been able to devote more time to polishing that prose, or to finding an editor who could edit for style, not just mechanics and typos.

If you deeply enjoy reading and writing, and have both a sense of humor and the capability of becoming at least slightly annoyed... i.e. like a burr under a saddle... when you confront the ever growing national scourge of *TYPOS* you will thoroughly enjoy this book. The authors share not only a love of the English language... but a fanatical belief in their very souls that they were put here on earth to defend and correct all that is sacred in the world of grammar. First Jeff Deck sets out on a national "road-trip" to uncover (Though much of the diseased typos are hiding in plain sight.) these dreaded abominations of the written word. A few friends pledge to meet him at different junctures of his trip including Benjamin who winds up becoming as fervent as Jeff... and in fact at times becomes more psyched and motivated than Jeff himself, and actually reenergizes his friend at moments of despair.

One of Jeff's fears as he departs on this benevolent trip to protect the educational value of literacy, is his meek non-combative personality. In other words... if he finds dreaded typos... will he have the guts to confront the evil perpetrators and get them to correct their sins against good grammar? One of the funniest sub-plots of the book is the "scoreboard" that the author's post at the end of each chapter once they're on their quest. **TYPO-TRIP-TALLY** TOTAL FOUND: XXX - TOTAL CORRECTED XXX.

Their battlefields range from restaurant menus to billboards... to Obama t-shirts... to art museums... to government buildings (Ooops! This could create legal problems!)... to the Grand Canyon and beyond. Finding these pesky annoying errors leads to another problem that's woven throughout the entire book. How will people react when presented with the grammatical blemishes in their midst? Some give a graveyard stare... some blame it on the owner... some blame it on the corporate home office... some actually give the boys permission to change it with their ever growing "TYPO-CORRECTION-KIT" that becomes their "NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION" first aid kit. As their mission to protect all that is "holy" gains momentum they get interviewed on TV as well as written up in the papers. This is a very unique crusade that simply based on its subject matter had to put enormous pressure on the editors that proof read this book. This would be a tremendous book to make mandatory reading in middle schools and above. It would surely make learning fun and improve our educational system.

The cover and title caught my attention at Borders and I had to read it. The book is pretty straight forward as far as the plot, but it was the writing style that made me love this book. It wasn't all fluff and entertainment, either. He grew on the journey and made me laugh my head off along the way. Here's some non-spoiler quotes from the book to give you a flavor:

"She described to us six lanes' worth of unadulterated fear, populated exclusively by motorists whose driving education had been paid for by the blood of pedestrians."

"The standard clauses of the American dream only included two weeks of vacation a year."

From the first page, I applauded Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson's cross-country trek on their noble mission of restoring proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar. I encounter such public gaffes far too often and embarrass myself by gesturing and shouting at guilty billboards on the highway. I yell at the television when captions flash across the screen containing misspelled words and misplaced apostrophes. So when I heard that these two gentlemen took up arms in the form of a Typo Correction Kit and headed out to right these pervasive grammatical wrongs, I couldn't wait to read their story.

Jeff and Benjamin did not disappoint. Not only is their grammar, syntax, spelling, and punctuation flawless (as one would expect), their humorous storytelling is filled with informative, historical tidbits regarding the English language. One of my favorites concerns the battle between language Prescriptivists and Descriptivists, whom Jeff dubs Grammar Hawks and Grammar Hippies respectively, which dates back to the late twelfth century and continues to this day.

Jeff and Benjamin then go on to provide a solution to our nation's slide into orthographic apathy by giving us an inside look at Direct Instruction, a highly effective yet too-little-implemented teaching model used in conjunction with phonics-based reading instruction. Priceless!

But never did I anticipate that our heroes' noble mission would be met with antagonism, outright hostility, even run-ins with the law. Who would have thought that a brief, relaxing visit to the Grand Canyon (which included only some minor typo corrections) would turn into a legal nightmare?

This chronicle of Jeff and Benjamin's illustrious journey was the next best thing to riding shotgun. For all word nerds and lovers of the English language--maybe even (or especially) for those who aren't--The Great Typo Hunt is a gotta-read.

You might think a book about a couple of guys who set out in search of typos on signs, menus and the like would only appeal to writers, editors, journalists, English teachers and the wordsmiths at Merriam-Webster.

Throw in readers who love a road trip, obsessives of all stripes and the many folks who just plain cringe at the sight of a sign reading "mens' room" and you have a more complete picture of the intended audience for "The Great Typo Hunt."

Co-author Jeff Deck, formerly an associate editor at Rocks & Minerals magazine, cooked up the idea for this novel cross-country tour and enlisted Benjamin Herson to help lead what Deck dubbed the Typo Eradication Advancement League.

Finding and, hopefully, fixing typos "was the good that I, Jeff Deck, was uniquely suited to visit upon society," Deck writes of his brainstorm's inception. "I would change the world, one typo correction at a time."

Deck and Herson became self-appointed ambassadors of orthography, which the dictionary defines as "the art of spelling according to accepted usage." Deck's tool kit included a black marker, a black Sharpie, white and colored chalk, vinyl stick-on letters and what he calls the "elixir of correction," which, I assume, is Wite-Out. He and Herson launched a blog to chronicle their adventure.

Spotting typos was the easy part; they're everywhere. (My personal favorite: "LONLEY? YOU GOT A FRIEND IN BOOZE") The real work was to be found in correcting them. In some cases, that required stealth. In others, it involved requesting permission to make the necessary changes.

Amazingly, many spelling- and grammar-challenged people actually welcomed the offer of help. Of course, others were apathetic, openly hostile or sadly misguided. One clerk vigorously defended a sign for toys that offered "year around" fun "in doors" and out. She even produced a dictionary that showed a dot between the two syllables of "indoors," which, she said, proved that it was two words, not one.

Deck, who narrates "The Great Typo Hunt," knows his stuff; occasionally his pedantry is off-putting. But while he takes his task seriously, he retains his sense of humor as well. The sometimes grandiose descriptions of his mission are entertaining because they're so over-the-top.

"With my hands firmly grasping the ladder of attentiveness and care," he muses while holding a ladder for a guy who is fixing a sign advertising "sweatts," "who knew how high my countrymen could ascend? Perhaps to the very heavens of perfect spelling and grammar, where seraphim cry hosannas to the correctly deployed apostrophe and cherubim strike down subject-verb disagreements with their burning blades!"

Deck makes it clear that he was not out to embarrass or belittle folks who broke the rules, but rather to encourage them to edit themselves more carefully and to "inspire other ordinary people to speak out when they see mistakes." This crusade was not elitist, nor was it a lark.

In fact, Deck and his confederates have animated discussions about the underpinnings of their work. Weren't the origins of accurate spelling arbitrary? If the meaning of a misspelled sign is clear, is it worth correcting? Is there a significant difference between errors that are deliberate, informed choices and those made out of ignorance?

As I neared the end of the book, I began to grow weary of the four recurring scenarios: the covert fix, the brush-off, the cooperative employee and the SOB with anger-control issues. But then Deck threw in an entirely unexpected - and quite real - crisis, which pulled me back into the story.

Give "The Great Typo Hunt" a shot. Its a good read. Better yet, it's a good read.