One thing about casting yourself as a copy editor and proofreader is that it sometimes challenges folks to look for your mistakes.

While having a reader point out a typo is embarrassing, it proves my point: We all need copy editors. No one is above correction.  Not us mere mortals. Not the mighty computer.

If I traveled around my neighborhood wielding a big red pen, I’d have plenty of places to use it, from misspellings “wheel alinements done here” on an auto shop sign, to improper punctuation “fresh apple’s, 99 cent’s a pound” painted on a produce market flier, to this doozy on a pharmacy sign: If your sick their quick minute service.

I think we’ve all grown accustomed to these typos. There are Web sites dedicated to finding and posting such gaffes. Check out this for some laughs.

Some folks may argue that it doesn’t matter if the signs are wrong, just as long as the idea still comes across. But at what point does your idea get lost in the translation?

We forgive these errors in English-as-a-second language situations,  just as we hope citizens of  non-English speaking countries excuse our spotty foreign language skills. Otherwise, we really have no excuse. Do you want your Web site, your work, featured as the latest post on a blog specializing in “what not to do?”

Probably not.

Relying upon your computer’s spell checking program is about a safe as employing an umbrella in a hurricane. Case in point — and this comes from a newspaper — unforgivable in my book:

The article expounded the changes to Michigan’s school funding structure. What the writer meant to distinguish was the funding disparities between rich school districts and poor school districts. I suspect an over-reliance on  the spell checker changed the struggle to one between rich districts and poop districts.

This elicited many laughs from readers and within the  newsroom (it wasn’t our paper) as we pondered what a poop district might look like and why state funding was lacking.