We’re noticing that most books have at least one typo among tens of thousands of words.  The article above has only 83 words!  And why didn’t the spellchecker work?

First to find the typo gets kudos on Facebook and Twitter.

Microsoft Courier (Image from GIZMODO.com)

I noticed a section on Karisha Prescott’s blog post titled “Ideal Writing Gear: Science Fiction Office“ that struck some interest. Being a gadget freak myself, I couldn’t resist Google-ing the Microsoft Courier. Will it become the ultimate writer’s journal?

It appears that Microsoft has joined the race for e-reader supremacy with Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Sony’s Readers but Microsoft is definitely trying to raise the ante. Maybe it’s not fair to compare the Courier to e-readers but more appropriate to compare it to the latest tablet-PCs and netbooks. Or maybe, we should really compare it to personal organizers and notebooks (which don’t have a shot against the features that Microsoft is touting). Karisha described it as a “virtual journal” that is reminiscent of the familiar Moleskine journals. I’m not a writer myself but carry around a Moleskine everyday for recording notes during my regular business meetings. It would be amazing to have a digital, customizable journal that also serves as an e-reader!

Check out the video clips and more pictures at GIZMODO.

Armed Panda at www.flickr.com/photos/nelsonminar/286841113/

Here’s an excerpt from the book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. Thanks for lending us the book, bluedog! Or is it our Christmas gift?

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

“Why?” asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

“I’m a panda,” he says, at the door. “Look it up.”

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

“Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

So, [typoze] really do matter, even if they’re only occasionally matters of life and death.