From a story in today’s New York Times describing a veteran who was court-martialed for shooting an Iraqi in 2004.
Mr. Richmond shot the herder in the back of the head from six feet away as the man, who has handcuffed, stumbled.
—from “Veteran Who Was Court Martialed Gets 4 Years in Prison for Jan. 6 Attack”, New York Times, November 18, 2024
Error: “…, who has handcuffed,…” instead of “…, who was handcuffed,…”
Type of error rating: 2, because this seems to be a typo which wasn’t caught. (Although we should note the H key isn’t near the W key. Actually this is more a brain-fart than a typo.)
Author/editor rating: 4, because regardless of the minor level of error, a reader of the Times has a right to expect the author (or an editor) actually reads the copy prior to its being published, and even if it slipped by everyone on Nov. 18, it would be noted by somebody and corrected by the time I read it midday on the 19th.
Personal reaction rating: 1…It neither entertained or enraged. It jarred me a little, but my blood pressure stayed constant.
Bottom line: This error rates a 2/4/1 for a 7 out of 10 on the Reader’s Horror scale.
Discussion:
- I’m going to need to see if all of these errors wind up being in the 7-9 range. The scale won’t mean much if so.
- Writing something like this really puts one on his toes. I know I’ve corrected numerous errors in already-published posts!
all the voices in my head 