One. Letter. Off...

I probably don't need to point out by now that I'm not a very good proofreader. 

Not that I'm claiming to be any kind of fantastic WRITER, but PROOFREADING my own work is something I absolutely SUCK AT. Full credit to my darling editor wife for proofreading all my papers in grad school!  That alone probably got me half a point higher on my GPA.  But I can't help it.  Even spell-check isn't fool-proof (I'm an extraordinary fool, after all!) and when I read something within 12 hours or so of having written it, regardless of what's actually on the page, I simply SEE what I meant to say.  Once the idea's no longer in my personal RAM, I can usually spot the error, but as I spend a lot of time THINKING about what I write, consequently I'm pretty helpless at proofreading it in a timely manner.  (Surprisingly, I'm actually pretty good at proofreading other people's work.)

For example, if I'd known that this piece was going to be picked up and quoted by several other sites, I probably would have at least run a spell-check before posting it here.  As it was, the critical section got cut-and-pasted, warts and all, onto several other sites.  How embarrassing.  It was like, \Look at this guy's great ideas!  And from someone who speaks English as second language no less!" 

(No, English is NOT my second language!)

Earlier today, on two separate Glenn Beck threads, I misspelled (or almost mispelled, as it were) "MORMON."  In one, I spelled it "Morom," which... is gibberish; but I think people still got the point.  LUCKILY I caught the other one, because...

Well... I said (in response to his criticism of President Obama's characterization of America as a nation of Christians, Muslim, Jews, Hindu's and Non-Believers) that "Well, we sure as hell aren't a nation of MORMONS ."

What I ALMOST posted was that "Well, we sure as hell aren't a nation of MORONS."

Which...

1) In context, doesn't make any damned sense!

and

2) May or may not be true, actually, depending on your point of view.

Luckily I caught that one.  But it got me thinking about what may have been my most infamous typo... what may have been they worst spelling error of all-time, in fact...

I was sending a thank-you note to my aunt, who had given me a SHIRT for Christmas.  Only... I left out the "R"...:

Dear Auntie Linda,

Thank you for the SHIT you gave me for Christmas!

Love,
Eddie

Yep. One lousy letter sure can be pretty darned importantt, can't it?