Niels Berg Olsen sent this (fabulously) discerning note: I enjoyed reading your item on Greek cheek in your fabulous book This is Improbable, Too [Printed and bound in Denmark…”]. I notice a difference in the text in the book and in your news item in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/jul/05/highereducation.research In the Guardian you wrote: “The report […]
Tag: typo
Brian, a New Typo of Research
A new typo of research has just been published in the medical journal Acta Neurochirurgica: “Brian retraction injury after elective aneurysm clipping: a retrospective single‑center cohort study,” by B. Konya, J. W. Dankbaar, and A. van der Zwan, 2022. (Thanks to Retraction Watch and Ivan Oransky for bringing this to our attention.)
A telling typo: High Hell Shoes
A typographical error, like a Freudian slip, can sometimes reveal a hidden truth. An example — the phrase “high hell shoes” — appears in this medical study: “Evaluation of the influence of low and high heel shoes on erector spine muscle bioelectrical activity assessed at baseline and during movement,” Anna Mika, Łukasz Oleksy, Edyta Mikołajczyk, Anna Marchewka, […]
‘Fat fingers’ and computer programming languages
The ‘Fat Finger Syndrome’ is a semi-affectionate nickname used by computer programmers – meaning ‘making typing errors’. As anyone who has tried their hand at programming will know, a seemingly tiny error (for a human), for example simply substituting a ; for a : can render a programme completely unusable. But it […]

