What’s the Bad Word?

A few typos, including the latest in a Susan Anderson romantic novel, that caused some flutters

The Guardian and a romance website nattily named Smart Bitches Trashy Books have together rated author Susan Anderson’s latest romance novel Baby, I’m Yours, as having the best gaffe or typo ever. The author was herself horrified to discover a typo on page 293 in the novel’s ebook edition, which read: ‘He stiffened for a moment but then she felt his muscles loosen as he shitted on the ground.’

“Shifted—he SHIFTED,” clarified an embarrassed Anderson, saying she had asked her editor to promptly fix the error. Anderson is not the first author in history to suffer such embarrassment. Here are a few typos that caused some flutters:

» Last year, Penguin Australia released a cookbook titled The Pasta Bible. In one recipe, it mistakenly suggested that readers add ‘salt and freshly ground black people’. The ‘people’ instead of ‘pepper’ error sent the sales of the book soaring 275 per cent in a fortnight. The reprint order for the cookbook was for over 7,000 copies.

» In 2009, an engraver introduced a misprint on the 50-peso coin in Chile. The engraver, Pedro Urzua Lizana, left out the bottom portion of the letter L, turning ‘CHILE’ into ‘CHIIE’. He lost his job for that, but not before 1.5 million of these coins had been released for public circulation.

» In 1962, a typo by a Nasa programmer resulted in the Mariner 1 being sent into the Atlantic Ocean instead of its intended destination, Venus. The detour was caused by a missing hyphen.

» A Bible published in 1631 contained the phrase, ‘Thou shalt commit adultery’ in Exodus 20:14, omitting the vital ‘not’. The publisher was fined, and the book was thereafter known as ‘The Wicked Bible’.

About The Author

Arindam Mukherjee