Paul's House Diary

Unrelated to the usual comments on urban redevelopment and architecture that I try and fill this blog with, I got a burn that I must address on this most public of forums. (full disclosure: I’ve averaged one viewer a day since Blogston’s inception, and I think that viewer is almost always me.)

On the first page of the March 30th edition of my favorite weekly alt mag in Boston I counted 3 typos. After spending my entire last semester in a copy-editing class rounding up criminal mistakes in proofreading from local papers, I’ve become a copy-editing ANIMAL. A fellow copy-editing animal is former Dig editor Courtney Cox, who left the paper earlier this year. A running joke in the paper was her steadfast attention to detail, and the pride she had in producing good copy, often to a point of annoyance for many on the Dig staff.

I’m terrible at avoiding typos. I’m a senior in J-school and I still get my midterms marked up because of sloppy apostrophe issues. It’s so sad and doesn’t paint me in a good light, but I don’t hold myself to the standard I hold the Dig too (not that I shouldn’t). You can find three typos on the first page of the Metro, and Dig readers consider the Metro a step below Charmin.

My snarky tweet @DigBoston was received quite to the contrary of what I had expected. My bad? Maybe. But I don’t think my crime is as bad as theirs.

“@DigBoston love you, but last issue was filled with typos aplenty. you’re better than that.”

“@pauldavenport3 meh”

The Dig is young, but they have an outstanding legacy. I take their snarky reply with a grain of salt, but the Dig lost a little bit of credibility that some honest acknowledgement easily could’ve spared them.

UPDATE!

MERE minutes later, @DigBoston thanked me for reading, and assured me someone will be fired for this. I replied that this was all I asked.