Obsessives: Typo Warriors

The Chicago Times reports on Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson who are traveling across the US correcting typos and grammar as they go. Driving a GPS-guided ‘97 Nissan Sentra they call themselves TEAL — the Typo Eradication Advancement League. When they spot typos on signs, they stop and if they can’t ask someone to correct them, they do it themselves.

So they approach a cafe, a shoe store, a visitors center. They identify a typo on a sign, a label, a poster. They point out the typo. They await the reaction.

This next part varies. They are greeted warmly (sometimes). They are told to go away (sometimes). They are gently blown off (usually). “We have not yet encountered fisticuffs,” Herson said. But it’s always a possibility. Often they make the needed alterations themselves, with compliance from a manager or supervisor. And when ignored, they have resorted to guerrilla tactics—slipping in a stray letter here, removing an errant comma there. They have found about 400 cringe-inducing examples of bad copy mistakes—on church signs and at Rockefeller Center, on sandwich boards and at the Grand Canyon.

That is, 400 examples they have brought to the attention of the powers that be. They have gone as far as correcting graffiti. Their tour ended this week.

Typo personalities — – chicagotribune.com
Typo Eradication Advancement League