3 scary typos: or why you should use an editor, not a spellchecker

Susan Pierotti, Creative Text Solutions Spellcheckers are handy devices, but they are limited. English has vast numbers of homophones, words that sound the same but are spelt differently. A spellchecker won't pick up that you've written on your CV 'there business' instead of 'their business', but it could cost you the interview and the job. Many of us a good spellers but not skilled typists. I make plenty of typos, but I don't allow the red squiggly line to solely dictate what I need to fix. It won't correct '1875' if I should have typed '1785', and Janet might get annoyed if my email is addressed to Jane. 3 scary typos 1 One letter missing sent 124-year-old family business into bankruptcy. The compensation case cost the UK government millions of pounds. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11372343/Government-in-9-million-payout-after-single-letter-blunder-causes-business-to-collapse.html  2 A typo caused one of Israel's largest investment firms to lose nearly 100% of its market value. http://www.cnbc.com/id/100986999# [caption id="attachment_284" align="alignleft" width="90"] New York Stock Exchange[/caption] 3 'B' and 'm' are close together on a keyboard. By typing 'billions', not 'millions', a stock trader unintentionally caused panic selling, with the  collective  value of the US stock dropping by over $1 trillion! http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/fat-finger-points-to-us-stocks-dive-20100507-uh91.html  Hire an editor, come to the course We all make mistakes. To err is human, to hire an editor is good sense. Creative Text Solutions' workshop, Make your Writing ZING!, will cover spelling, spellcheckers and many other topics to make what you write have impact. Book at http://clearlytalking.com/event-registration/?regevent_action=register&event_id=25