Placemarker text fail

And the proofers would say: There is no "their" there.

 

This, boys and girls, is why you should think twice before gutting your copy desk.

 

Nahhhhhhhhhh.

 

While I would never, ever, ever do this, the first thing I thought of was I hope this makes a few coaches think about sending their stats in in a timely fashion.


Honestly I'm so paranoid that sometimes I check my softball/baseball stories for the word "shit" in case I haven't transposed any of the letters in "hits".

 

Damnit Starman, it's bastards like that who have ruined the business.

 

I'll be honest. I smiled a little when I saw that. Made me think of some of my favorite coaches.

 

Does the guy deserve to get fired? I guess.

Do I want to buy him a drink because what he wrote is the truth? Yes.

 

There have been times when I've been writing and accidentally get going too fast and gets letters transposed or whatever and it turns into a curse word or a somewhat vulgar word to describe parts of a woman's anatomy and I mentally do a "Yikes!" and erase it as fast as I can. As if somehow the bad word I typed will make its way from my screen through the system and onto the newspaper page in the 2 seconds between the time I typed it and the time I erased it.

 

It wouldn't totally be fair though. One of my co-workers once sent a page with wire copy that involved an NBA game and a nearly-game winning basket in the final seconds that didn't beat the 24-second shit clock.

Luckily, I just happened to pick up a proof and caught it. The page was re-sent.

 

There's a difference between an honest mistake like that and leaving pre-meditated stupid shit in a story or on a page.

That's why I never, ever do it. Used to do it occasionally when I was younger, but I've heard too many stories of people getting caught out on it.

 

When my editor was working on the New Hampshire-Maine state line, his paper's content system immediate flagged the word "anus," every time.

Maine's governor at the time? "Angus King."

 

This is why they are there.