01 August, 2008

Muphry's Law

Muphry’s Law (no, not Murphy’s). Muphry’s law states that “if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.”

Hartman’s Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation: “any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one eror”.

“McKean’s Law” (after Verbatim editor Erin McKean):
Call it McKean’s Law: Any correction of the speech or writing of others will contain at least one grammatical, spelling, or typographical error.

“Skitt’s Law” (after alt.usage.english contributor “Skitt”):
Skitt’s Law, a corollary of Murphy’s Law, variously expressed as “any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself” or “the likelihood of an error in a post is directly proportional to the embarrassment it will cause the poster.”


Courtesy of posters from the Freakonomics blog

3 comments:

Minx said...

LMAO, Ms M - is this the sophsticate's way of saying what ever you blog and when ever you blog, you are certain to bugger it up at least some of the time???

--- said...

Yup - and that righteous indignation over spelling, punctuation and grammar comes out the most when you've had a bit to drink - which is, unfortunately, when you're less co-ordinated!

MM

Minx said...

- or when you have just had a set of acrylic nails fitted!! My sdpelling has gone to the doges ever since!!! :))