Casting a bad spel cq

 

An old - make that "long time" - friend is a member of a SciFi fan club, one where writing is taken very seriously.

So seriously, in fact, that the organization - once known as the "Pittsburgh Area Realtime Scientifiction Enthusiasts Club," now simply PARSEC (http://www.parsec-sff.org/index.html) - has as its raison d'être "to promote awareness of the richness of speculative fiction as literature, art and music; further general education in the sciences and arts, support contribution, both scientific and artistic, to society and to espouse the enjoyment of speculative fiction as literature, art and music with others."

It even sponsors a well-received contest for budding authors, complete with critiques by both members (first cut) and published authors.

So one would think that the PARSEC web site would be typo free.

One would be mistaken.

For several months, the PARSEC page at http://www.parsec-sff.org/l has had the following contents:

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Writing Contest Delay

16 July 2010

The winners of the writing contest would normaly have been anounced at this time.

Unfortunately, due to uncontrolable citcumstances, that announcement has been delayed.

Please be patient and stay tuned.

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There are 36 words in the three sentences. Of the 36, four are, to be kind, typos:

normaly (normally) anounced (announced) uncontrolable (uncontrollable ) citcumstances (circumstances)

Everybody makes mistakes; I've been known to fat-finger LOTS of words. Usually my spell check catches the typos - Me? Misspell a word? - but sometimes a word is corrrectly spelled but incorrect for the application, e.g., clothes vs. close; know vs. no or now. There are other "got'chas" that creep into any author's copy.

The difference is, when someone points them out to me I make an effort to correct the faux pas; I hate to be embarrassed - and trust me, I have been embarrassed in 60 point (that's BIG) type.

My friend at PARSEC knows about the "oops" on the PARSEC page; she alerted the Powers That Be. I also - before daring to mention the typos to my friend - tried to alert those Powers.

I know the page has been touched; the PARSEC Picnic copy - with map - was added after I tried to rattle the Powers' cage.

Granted I am a bit of a curmudgeon, but I think if I was a budding SciFi author, if I read PARSEC's page, I might wonder just how valid any critique by members of this organization might be.

Truth in blogging: My friend is the Writing Contest Queen and she DOES take her work very seriously; fortunately for her - and unfortunately for PARSEC - she does not create or maintain the organization's Web presence.

Yohanon Glenn
Yohanon.Glenn at gmail dot com