Comments on: U.S. Federal Government Silences Typo Spotters; Forces Them To Stop Encouraging Others

By: Leigh White

Leigh White — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:15:45 +0000

The most frustrating point about this case to me is the amount of money spent finding and prosecuting these guys. As a great admirer and user of our national parks, I would much rather have seen that money go into maintenance of the many park facilities in need of repair. I would also rather have seen these guys sentenced to serve in the park, repairing, cleaning–whatever. After all, they obviously have a lot of spare time on their hands. I’m just thankful they didn’t stop off at the Arch in St. Louis, where the Museum of Western Expansion features huge panels of text taken from Lewis’s and Clark’s diaries, complete with their atrocious spelling and grammar errors. I’m not even sure you can buy Wite-Out by the gallon, and they would have needed it there. Wouldn’t it be ironic if they used that particular brand of correction fluid, poorly-spelled as its name is?

By: Alan Jackson

Alan Jackson — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:52:39 +0000

Pity they didn’t get ‘banged up’.

We could have championed their cause with a Free the Typo two.... or Three the Typo 2....or Free the Typo too. Something that matches the stupidity from both sides in this case.

By: Michael Hughes

Michael Hughes — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:14:40 +0000

I appreciate your point of view as well, but the episode about the church sign reminded me of a poem by the Sufi poet Rumi. Moses criticizes a simple shepherd for the coarseness of his prayer and God answers:

“On each man I his nature did bestow,
To everybody an expression I impart,
Which seems great praise to him, but blame to you;
He thinks it honey, you as poison deem;
It light to him must be, and fire to you;
But roses bright to him, and thorns to you,
What he deems good, as wicked you condemn;
What he applauds, you often disapprove;
We from pure and all impure things are free,
As well as from anxiety and speed.
I man have not produced for gain of mine,
But blessings to bestow on those who worship me.”

Again, I find an unseemly arrogance in the Teal group. It smacks of technical communicators at our worse, using our knowledge, like Moses in the Sufi poem, to get in the way of communication.

By: ScottAbel

ScottAbel — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:17:36 +0000

Interesting vantage point, Michael. I still stand by my opinion that the prosecution was grandstanding (after all, it’s an election year).

I also think the news coverage was lame and lazy. They really didn’t make any effort to find the interesting angles nor did they bother to do basic reporting.

I’m all for the guys (TEAL) paying for the damage—I don’t want anyone to deface any historic jewels (be they signs, artworks, or buildings) but I also don’t want our government wasting money selectively enforcing laws. There are so many laws not being enforced in Arizona—and the nation as a whole—that we could spend time and money enforcing.

As far as abundant free time..I think you are missing the point. They were working their way across America helping folks who maintain signs avoid some of the dumb mistakes people make—like, the Christian Church sign that read: “Jesus is our shepard” (author of surrealistic allegorical plays; a mutant villain in the Marvel Comics Universe; astronaut who made the first United States’ suborbital rocket-powered flight in 1961) instead of “Jesus is our shepherd” (a clergyman who watches over a group of people).

There are hundreds of great stories from the TEAL trek across the country that do have value. They did not make fun of the people who made the errors; instead, they worked to educate and help them make the changes. Some accepted their help and made corrections to their signs. Others did not.

These young folks may have used some bad judgment when it came to the historical sign they damaged, but their overall effort was a positive one, loaded with useful, educational stories. I, personally, can’t wait until they are able to share them with us all.

By: Michael Hughes

Michael Hughes — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:14:38 +0000

One detail that was in the article that seems important is:
“On March 28, while at Desert View Watchtower on the South Rim, they used a white-out product and a permanent marker to deface a sign painted more than 60 years ago by artist Mary Colter. The sign, a National Historic Landmark, was considered unique and irreplaceable, according to Sandy Raynor, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix.”

These individuals defaced a historic,hand-written document that revealed the humanity of the author (as in “to err is...") Was their smug, self-righteous sense of self-worth at knowing the apostrophe rule better than the artist whose work they defaced that important? My only regret in this story is that they didn’t get jail time.

Oh, and in their obviously abundant spare time, the TEAL folks should have looked up the word typo; they would have realized that they had no standing in the sign in question.