The case of the conspiculously absent proofreaders

Do news proofreaders exist in Colombia? And if they do, then why are they so sloppy? Inquiring minds want to know, and bleeding eyeballs are crying out for a linguistic armistice. Enuf is enuf!

I’ve been in the U.S. for the past ten days, so my Spanish has more or less come to a screeching halt. I said in my last post, though, that I have to blog like I have to breathe, so it’s good to come up for some air. I may not be speaking much Spanish here (besides some Skype calls), but I still tend to regularly scan the headlines and a few news articles back home. And as I did so yesterday, the discouraging same ol’ same ol’ inspired me to make a teaching moment from it.

What do I mean by the same ol’ same ol’? I’m not talking about the content of the news, but rather its presentation. To wit, I personally find that the online news in Colombia is RIFE with spelling and grammatical errors. I mean, absolutely filled to the gills with typos and gaffes. I rarely read print versions of the news, so I can’t comment on that. These errors seem to be more the rule than the exception, and sadly it’s across the board. I decided to collect a few examples to see if you can find the mistake.

My methodology: I read ONE column on El Tiempo‘s website and found a typo, and then sat down to read just ONE article on Semana‘s website and came across a wide gaping gaffe right off the bat. Not ten articles; not even two. Just one news item each was all it took to come across these errors. If I’d read every article on their respective sites, there’s no doubt I would have found mistakes galore. It was at this point that I decided to intentionally look for and collect errors. I then went to the websites of El Espectador, El Colombiano, La Silla Vacía, Publimetro, and Pulzo. And on each site I chose only ONE article to read. With El Espectador, I never even made it to an article; the headline of the top story had a big typo-filled grin for me. Not one of these articles was free of spelling/grammar mistakes.

OK, challenge yourself to see if you can find the mistakes as well. The answers are below, and I’ve indicated in yellow what sections the mistakes are in. At least the ones I found– if there are others, please let us know.

1. El Tiempo

2. Semana

3. El Espectador 

4. El Colombiano

5. La Silla Vacía

6. Publimetro

7. Pulzo

ANSWERS

1. No es contra ti, Salud, but your spelling leaves a lot to be desired. Perjuicios? I’m sure you meant prejuicios. Expect to be both pre-judged and post-judged when you write sloppily.

2. Well, we don’t have to look far for this mistake. First sentence: Esta semana Bogotá fondo. Look ma, no verbs! They clearly meant to say that Bogotá tocó fondo. This newspaper’s writing hit rock bottom with this opening line. Let’s just hope that their writing also has arreglo.

3. Fueron condenaron? Close but no cigar: it’s fueron condenados. It’s no fun to spectate gaffes like these ones–it’s like 20 fuetazos for my poor eyes.

4. A triple whammy: three mistakes in one sorry sentence. Ideam should be capitalized, just as it is in every other mention in the article; por lo que se sugiere OR por lo que sugieren, but not the two combined; and it should be posibles crecientes. Red alert for typos.

5. Las pestañas, not la pestañas. Empty chair, absent proofreader.

6. Dejar de usar, not dejar se usar. Please don’t stop using a proofreader; but do get a better one.

7. Gestión should definitely be capitalized in that name. And shouldn’t it be Javier Pavo, since he’s a man? Just kidding on that last count.

How did you do?

Sorry about the snark, but I can’t help it! I’m just as harsh with my own stupid mistakes. A translator and editor by trade, I have eyes like a hawk (or lynx-eyed, like they say in Spanish: ojos de lince). Shouldn’t this be a prerequisite for any writer or publisher? Also, Spanish is my second language, and as such I try to treat it with a lot of respect. I mean, I started this blog three years ago to help people learn and improve it. Is it too much to ask for Colombia’s journalism to show Spanish the same level of care and respect? It’s rather embarrassing to see mistakes like these on a daily basis, feeling my intelligence insulted in the most indifferent manner. Come on, Colombia! ¿Dónde quedó el profesionalismo, pues? Show some respect for your readers, your language, and yourselves.

I’m not capable of speculating why these kinds of mistakes happen, but feel free to leave a comment if you have insights into this. I know that Salud Hernández-Mora and her ilk are hardly ill-read, so I just have to put it down to typos and sloppy or nonexistent proofreading. I make typos all the time; and . . . then I catch them. It’s not rocket science. Colombian newspapers, hire better proofreaders, pay them more, and make it easier for readers to report typos! I’ll do this test again in a few months, and I’d better see improvements.

You can call misprints and typos gazapos, although this word is on the erudite side. I’ve used it many a time with zero comprehension on the part of my listeners. Misprints in previous issues of books or articles are sometimes listed in a fe de erratas: errata in English (erratum in the singular). An ex and I used to call mistakes rats because of the similarity. I found a rat! we’d declare, when proofreading each other’s writing. Colombian newspapers, please call exterminators and set out mousetraps post haste.

Promising news: during the writing of this blog, Semana caught their error and fixed it to exactly what I said it was supposed to be. Now that’s what I’m blogging about!