Misspelling a word can alter the meaning of an entire sentence. The advent of spell-checking software has made accurate spelling easier, but it is not a panacea. When a typographical error or spelling error results in another word, spellcheck is useless.

Take the increasingly common misspelling “loose.” Loose is an actual word, of course, but it’s becoming a common misspelling of the word “lose,” with sometimes humorous results (that were meant to be serious).

For example, here’s a sentence from a review of Little Brother by Cory Doctorow on the Boise Speculative Fiction Writers blog (thank you, w0pht, for permission to use it):

This novel preaches the gospel of open encryption and free speech that this country is rapidly loosing to political fear mongering and civil rights trashing.

A single letter has changed the intent of a serious sentence describing a political climate of increased censorship of word, deed and thought. With the error, it reads (to me) as if open encryption and free speech have been unleashed, like Shakespeare’s dogs of war, to prey upon fear mongering and civil rights trashing: quite the opposite of the writer’s intent, though not a bad idea.

If you’re thinking w0pht is grammar challenged, please rest assured this was simply a typographical error in a blogpost. And buy his short story in the new anthology Barren Worlds from Hadley Rille Press, because I can’t use his typo and not plug his new book. I’m getting an autographed copy at his reading, 2 p.m. on July 26 at the Rediscovered Bookshop.

–Val