Muphry’s Law

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Do you feel uneasy about writing because you are afraid readers will catch your typos and grammar errors and assume you are a nincompoop?

Try being a writing and grammar blogger. Talk about pressure!

Readers love to spot the inevitable mistakes I make here and on my Facebook page. Granted, most of my readers are the congenial sort who point out my editorial oversights only out of kindness, but I’ve had more than a few “outraged” grammarians pounce upon the merest snafu. Of course, to my great amusement, a high percentage of those comments themselves contain some kind of grammar error:

This is an example of Muphry’s Law.

That’s not a typo. You are probably familiar with Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Muphry’s Law is a variation: If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.

Clever, right?

(Now I have to proofread this post for the fourth time).

*****

Your comments, as always, are much appreciated.

About the Author

Brian WaskoBrian is the founder and president of WriteAtHome.com. One of his passions is to teach young people how to write better.View all posts by Brian Wasko

  1. Grammar Nut
    Grammar Nut12-19-2013

    How many times do you proofread your blogs?

  2. Rachel
    Rachel12-18-2013

    Wow, that’s amazingly true. I love your title.

  3. Anne Bryant
    Anne Bryant12-18-2013

    Hi Brian, You are absolutely right. I have criticized others writing before and made worse errors almost immediately. I am glad that you put a name to it, I thought it was just cosmic payback.

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