Ah, those pesky mistakes! While working in radio broadcasting, I really appreciated that it was easy to deny statements made on the air waves. If I pronounced someone’s name wrong or used the wrong form of a verb, it generally went unnoticed by most listeners. If someone reported to management that an announcer made an error in a news report, the announcer could deny that’s what he said.

Errors in print are a lot harder to deny. I usually find the worst errors while running the printing press or a bit later when I sit down to look over the finished edition.

It’s easy to be critical of errors u...