perpetuating typos

[deird1]

I am one of very few people with qualifications in both engineering and editing. Which means that, before I started my job, most of the documents I'm reviewing were only being looked at by people who
a) didn't understand engineering terminology
or
b) weren't used to going through documents with a fine-tooth comb.*


This is why I keep discovering things like the latest oddity: "500 Megger".


I think the sequence must have gone something like this:
1) Engineer, at the end of a long day, has been writing "500 Megaohm" over and over, gets totally sick of it, and starts abbreviating to "Mega".
2) At one point, this gets mis-spelled as "Megger".
3) An editor looks over the document, sees this "Megger" thing, and thinks "Hmm... obscure engineering term, no doubt."

In later documents...
4) Another engineer, writing a new document on the same subject, cannily decides to copy-paste. "Megger" ends up in the new document.
5) An editor, wondering about this weird "Megger", checks an earlier document, sees the same thing, and concludes "Yep. Commonly-used engineering term." and thinks no more about it.

...and several years later, I come along and start sorting the whole mess out.


I do find it fairly fascinating looking at stuff like this.

---

* Sidenote: despite being well aware of how it's supposed to be spelt, I still keep wanting to write it as "fine toothcomb". My brain seems to have decided that's the way it works - even though I have no idea why you'd be combing your teeth.
Probably the same part of my brain that wants to change "overall" to "over-all" unless I'm talking about clothing.

Comments

[snickfic]

And that is how editors destroy/save the world. One typo at a time.

I applaud you in your sorting-out.

[deird1]

*bows*

[slaymesoftly]

Huh - I thought it was fine toothed comb (as in not the widely spaced kind or end). Like a flea comb.

See, you're invaluable! You should point that out at your next salary review. :)

[deird1]

I thought it was fine toothed comb (as in not the widely spaced kind or end). Like a flea comb.

Indeed it is. It can be written as "fine-tooth comb" or "fine toothed comb" - but they both mean exactly what you said.

[lizbee]

I've probably perpetuated more than a few of those errors when transcribing highly technical patent cases. Last week it was genetics, this week it was pharmaceuticals. Since I have no background at all in chemistry or biology (and neither did the barristers I was transcribing), it was a little awkward.

[redsixwing]

You are, indeed, the win for figuring that out.

[velvetwhip]

Maybe a Megger is a Kegger with lots more booze.


Gabrielle