A firm knock at the door;  "Is Jeff Deck here?"  A tall, muscular fellow squeezed into a tan uniform handed over some photocopied documents, "This is about a sign you vandalized at the Grand Canyon."
Appalled by the man's characterization of the act, Benjamin replied,"We corrected it."
"It was a hundred years old," the ranger said.
"Oh." Benjamin signed that he'd officially received the document.

The National Park Service was not grateful for the correction.The federal government advised that Jeff and Benjamin had "first conspired to vandalize and then vandalized a precious national historic treasure" and very much desired that they return to Arizona to appear in court.

Suddenly the saga of TEAL, the Typo Eradication Advancement League had taken a "bleak twist."  One bad correction had the power to negate hundreds of good ones.  Jeff took down his blog, the website; spoke with several lawyers and deleted the Grand Canyon entry.  They were guilty by their own blogged admission.
Banned from National Park territory, assigned a probation officer and left to pay expenses incurred (including $3,035 in restitution) Benjamin returned to his bookshop job;  Jeff was ordered to post public statements regarding the dangers of correcting typos.  He administers a website www.greattypohunt.com

~ THE GREAT TYPO HUNT / TWO FRIENDS CHANGING THE WORLD ONE CORRECTION AT A TIME.  Crown Publishers, 2010.  Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson.

www.greattypohunt.com  includes typos sent in by readers.

Armed with a typo-correction kit, Jeff and his friend Benjamin set out to locate and correct signs with typos.  Their initial kit contained:  elixir of correction, a thick black marker, a black Sharpie, white and colored chalk and vinyl stick-on letters.
There was no worry about the goal of finding a typo per day ~ of greater concern was the possibility of resistance from shopkeepers and restaurateurs.  Jeff mused, "I could even be arrested if I rankled the wrong folk...I would need to confront strangers about spelling, punctuation, and grammar.  These people would not necessarily share my zeal for such things, particularly in regard to their own errors."

~ Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson, THE GREAT TYPO HUNT - TWO FRIENDS CHANGING THE WORLD ONE CORRECTION AT AT TIME.  Crown Publishers, 2010.

Tomorrow:  What could possibly go wrong? Vandalism at the Grand Canyon?
[Photo:  files lbw]

"The sign had been taunting passersby with that loathsome extra s for who knew how long.  It hung on a wooden fence around a vacant lot next to a dentist's office.  NO TRESSPASSING.  Sure, I'd noticed this sign before;  dozens of walks to Davis Square had occasioned dozens of silent fist-shakings at this very spot.  This time, though, the sign's offense struck deeper.  How many spelling mistakes had I noticed over the years in shop windows, street signs, menus, billboards, and other public venues?  Countless, I thought.  Not an enterance, NYC Pizza and Pasta at it's best!  Cappuchino!  Pistashio!  Get palm reading's here!  To/too, their/there/they're, and your/you're confusion, comma and apostrophe abuse, transpositions and omissions, and other sins against intelligibility too heinous to dwell on.  Each one on its own amounted to naught but a needle of irritation thrusting into my tender hide.  But together they constituted a larger problem, a social ill that cried out for justice.
For a champion, even."

~ Jeff Deck, THE GREAT TYPO HUNT / TWO FRIENDS CHANGING THE WORLD, ONE CORRECTION AT A TIME, Jeff Deck, Benjamin D. Herson, Crown Publishers, 2010.

Tomorrow:  Jeff sets out to "change the world, one correction at a time."

www.GreatTypoHunt.com

SMILE FOR TODAY ~

Pouring the Concrete ~

 

 

 

 [Photos:  Monday, April 28 lbw]

 

 



 

Take a look ~ you won't see Jim Gibson standing still again.  Jim manages Towpath on the Grand, The-In-Between Antique Shop, The Blacksmith's Garden and William Biddle's Gallery.

 Visit Cayuga-on-the-Grand on Facebook for a "step inside" The Blacksmith's Garden.

 

 

 

 

 

Getting Ready to Pour Concrete on New Bridge ~

 

 

 

[Photos:  Saturday, April 24 lbw]