That little extra minute spent rereading an email, post, text, or sign . . . it’s hard to quantify its value, but I’ll try anyway. Take this sign, sent by my friend Sean. There’s only one misplaced letter, but what a difference that stray N makes! I’d definitely pay more than $4.99 to know that the devil hasn’t hunkered down under my tree, eating cookies intended for the big guy in the red suit. (Also, Santa deserves homemade baked goods. Just saying.)

Then there’s this line from an email I received, sent by a school I attended:

If the alumni office wants to assign a body part to my class, I’d prefer a new knee or maybe a shoulder. I’m guessing that class elbow is the auto-incorrect of “below.” The email this sentence appeared in didn’t ask for donations, but that’s always, and understandably, the subtext when your alma mater reaches out. Although I can’t condone proofreading errors, I’m actually tempted to give more because this made me chuckle, which is no small feat in 2020.

This mistake, on the other hand, is worth thousands of dollars — the salary of the person who inserted it in a stock paragraph preceding a film review. (I cropped out the name of the film, because it’s an obscenity. Judging by the review, so was the film.) This is from the print version of The New York Times:

Someone was probably drinking something while writing this, and it wasn’t water. I do hope the writer negotiated severance pay before passing out of the ranks of the employed.

Moral of the story: an ounce of prevention goes a long way, in proofreading and in life. Be safe!