Reading between the lines

The first thing I do when the new issue of GulfWeekly lands on my desk is turn to my page and read my article. Not, as some might assume, to see how great I look in print but rather to see what cuts (if any) have been made, if they've effected the overall point I was trying to make and most notably (and if I'm honest the only real reason) how many of my typos have gone to print uncaught.

The fact is that trying to type as fast as my thoughts are forming in my head means that by the time I've finished an article it's got at least a dozen (and often many more) mistakes in it but by the time I've read it over again I usually manage to catch most of them.

My editor (who has to read every single word that goes to print on each and every page of the newspaper) usually catches any glaring mistakes that I might have overlooked and the subs who put all the pages together generally find a little something to correct as well.

And, with all those checks in place, every week I turn to my page convinced that this will be the week that my article is word perfect, and every week I notice that this is in fact not the week (sigh). I've messed up again!

But last week it was a blessing in disguise because as I was going through the weekend trying to think about what I could use as inspiration for my next article, I checked my emails to find one from a reader pointing out last week's error and telling me to please learn the difference between 'bare' and 'bear'. And right he was.

Well, almost right. I do actually KNOW the difference, I'd just been typing so quickly that I didn't stop to think about which way I needed to spell it and when I read over the article again before submitting it, I anticipated the words coming and skimmed over the mistake. But whatever the reason, it was my mistake and the reader was right, it was a mistake that I should not have made.

I replied and thanked him for his feedback and even managed to be gracious enough to refrain from pointing out that he'd made a glaring mistake of his own in the email by signing off with an incomplete sentence: "Many thanks and looking forward," (oops, I guess I've just blown my boast of being gracious but since it's pertinent to the point I'm trying to make and not in the aim of making said reader feel bad, I'll have to forgive myself).

Anywho (yes, I know that's not a real word), to cut a long story short, it got me to thinking about how when we're right we really need to make sure we're right before pointing out other people's mistakes.

Let's face it, we've all been there; we've all at some point tried to show someone up only to end up with egg on our own faces, either by the ungracious way in which we've pointed out the mistake or by making a mistake of our own while pointing out the other person's error, and in really embarrassing moments, by doing both at the same time.

Its human nature to want to be better in some way than the next person and often that manifests itself in silly or petty ways like correcting another person's mistake.

It's so natural, in fact, that the words are often out of our mouths before we've even had a chance to think them through properly.

Our brains register a mistake and we're in such a rush to prove that we know better that we don't always stop and think before blurting out the correction and before we know it we're feeling silly for ever having said something in the first place.

Either because it's obvious that the other person has already taken note of the mistake and pointing it out just seems petty or because we were so busy jumping down that person's throat that we didn't check our facts first.

The trick is how you deal with it when you have made of fool of yourself.

I have a colleague who never fails to point out even the smallest of mistakes. He suffers fools very lightly and when a mistake is made he takes great pleasure in pointing it out to anyone who's close enough to listen.

It can be very irritating at times, especially since he very rarely makes mistakes himself and nine times out of 10 he's right. But, this is the point where I admit that despite this irritating little quirk of his, he's actually one of my favourite colleagues.

There's no malice in his criticism, he's simply better informed and often doesn't think before he opens his mouth and if he hears someone say something that's blatantly silly he doesn't have the filter that prohibits most of us from pointing out another person's glaring stupidity.

However, on the very odd occasion that he is wrong, he'll be the first person to admit it and laugh over his own mistake.

I guess the real lesson here is that mistakes are natural and while some (like being a writer and spelling words incorrectly) should be avoided more than others, they're going to happen and when they do you have to be ready to put up your hand and admit to them, learn from them and then move on.

Oh and by the way if there are any mistakes in this particular article, they're not mine. The editor or one of the subs did it!