I think it was in 1999, at a Colorado Christian Writers’ Conference, that I was talking with one of the presenters about typos, and he said “Typos are the great lost sock of the publishing industry.” I wish I could remember his name to give proper attribution. That is a great analogy! Sock go into the wash in matched pairs, but they don’t always come out that way. Where do they go? I don’t really know, but in the last week, I have found 3 mismatched lost socks on the side of three different roads. Coincidentally, I got three different typo reports for the World English Bible from three different countries. They were all pretty subtle, didn’t affect meaning, and one was in a footnote, but I was amazed that they weren’t caught sooner by me or by anyone else who was proofreading the World English Bible.
A lot of what I do is correcting typos and such in various Bible translations, as well as in the software that I use to publish Bibles. How do those typos get in there? How does someone’s sock get lost in the laundry? How does a sock end up on the side of the road? I don’t always know, but I do know how to pick up litter and how to correct typos when they are found. It is a joy to serve the Lord this way.