Many of you know that we’re working on a new website to get more exposure and send new visitors to our food blog friends who use EasyRecipe or other recipe formatting vehicle. John decided that in addition to more traffic to their newest posts, maybe we should offer a search by a few ingredients as a way to encourage our visitors to look at older posts. I thought it was a smashing idea but I have to tell you, we’ve laughed until we cried over a few (?) of the ingredients.
margaring
packacge
teasponn
vinigar / vingegar
angle hair
angle food
blanced
are just a few.
It’s clear that more than a few people don’t proofread their blogs or spell check because we’re struggling to sort out what’s what ingredient-wise. I was shocked at how many different ingredients people use in their recipes. We’ve found about 13,000 different ingredients. It ranges from a wooden plank to all purpouse flower. or all propose. We want our readers to be excited about making our recipes and not having them go, “huh??”
While it’s funny to read them, it’s sad that searches for ingredients on Google or our search will never ever find them because who’s going to search for worster sauce or wooster sauce? Probably not many.
This spelling error won’t result in a lack of searches but it’s just sloppy to see these: tablelspoons, tablepoons, tablesoon, tablespoonp, tablespooons ,tablesppons, tablspoon and tablspoons. I’m not being holier than thou because I’m sure I have had some oopses in my posts and recipes. This is a hello??? to all of us that proofreading is really important if we want to be taken seriously. You won’t find Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes or Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Woman making mistakes like these.
I once read a poem by Taylor Mali called, The Impotence of Proofreading. It’s a bit over the top but it shows just how bad it can get. To prove how geeky it is around here, after talking about misspellings and silly ingredients like “don’t use budweiser or my Dad will kill you,” John said, “I really need a way to disambiguate all this.” Yes, eyeroll, go ahead, it will feel better.
I said, “Is that a word??”
“Of course it’s a word, look it up.”
“Nah, I trust you – only a geek would use a word like that.”
Now I’ll share some food photos because I feel guilty for hand slapping over spelling. If you were wondering, I proofread this post about 30 times so if there are glaring errors, my apologies.
These were the simplest little tarts and not worthy of a recipe but they were delicious. At a shop I visit often, I was given some sweet tart shells that were nearly out of date. She said something like, “I’d rather have you use them than have to toss them away.” It didn’t make me feel very special but I took them anyway. Last night when looking for something for dessert I saw the shells and next to it was a can of apple filling. I never buy apple filling and I should never say never because there it was in the pantry.
I opened the filling, added some sugar and some sultanas and a dusting of cinnamon and a grate of fresh nutmeg and heated it until the sugar melted and set it aside to cool. I set the oven at 180 while I mixed some flour (you know, that all purpouse flower), sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and butter in the food processor. Then I filled the shells and filled them with the apple mixture and then sprinkled over the topping. It took about 30 minutes for them to brown and get crispy on top – I think. I was also watering the pots and tossing the ball in the pool for the dog. Time flies when you’re having fun. I topped them with whipped cream and we both thought they were really good.
Another easy peasy dessert when you’re in a hurry also uses premade shells from the supermarket. Make some lemon or vanilla custard or even a box of pudding and top with fresh fruit. John would need cream but I didn’t.
Do you have a favorite dessert that’s ready in just a few minutes?
Oh, you touched on a major pet peeve of mine…. I know I must have typos in my blog, even though I am adamant about proofreading. But it KILLS me that graduate students in our lab are able to compose power point presentations for talks WITH TYPOS in them! Holy cow, when you write something wrong, the word is underlined in red – it’s right there for you to see, like waving “HELLO, THIS WORD DOESN’T EXIST!”
it makes me soooo mad!
anyway, great post, and I agree with you, when I see a typo in a food blog, it makes me uncomfortable for some strange reason – if the blogger is a foreigner blogging in English, I tend not to mind that much, but when English is the blogger’s native language, it makes me cringe… 😉
I know exactly what you mean – it makes our eyes hurt 🙂
In Word Press typos are not underlined in red!
I know what you mean about typos. I do proofread mine so many times that I can’t stand looking at it anymore. But…some words still escape me. Then I cringe and feel so embarrassed about it.
Hi Rowena, I know what you mean. I hate it when I post something silly but I know most things are going to be close.
Oh, I laughed. Sigh. I try to be diligent in spell-checking, even going back to old posts….sigh. we must never let our hurry ‘to be published’, keep us from giving our best. Thank you for the reminder.
I have re-read old posts and found glaring mistakes and nobody mentioned it. Honestly, I’d much rather someone sent me a message and let me know. Thanks so much for coming by.
You are soooo right (or is that write ;-)?) WordPress has a spell check and a grammar check, but even then I miss a sneaky typo now and then (than ;-)?) And don’t get me started on my iPhone’s auto correct…that has almost gotten me into some serious trouble when I post a recipe on the phone (crazy, but it happens more often than not!). Sigh. I do, however, appreciate a note about a typo if you see one.
These are lovely tarts, Maureen particularly the second photo with the lovely berries (oh, how I miss summer).
Come to visit, Eva, we’ve got summer to spare 🙂 I know what you mean. I keep my iPad downstairs and use it to stay connected while I cook or watch the news and some of the words that it “corrects” crack me up. I’ve missed a few. 🙂
I’m only aware of mistakes if the auto-checker underlines any problems in red. Now I’m going to re-read my posts!
yep, spell check is good but it won’t pick up an inappropriate word or typo that IS a word. 🙂
I will have to stop writing my posts late at night while I’m so tired after working all day and don’t care if there is anything wrong!
I wrote that post at 1:30am and knew I was going to find something silly in it. 🙂
Maureen, furst off al I am lovin the nu luck! Your site looks fantastic. Excellent post on spelin mist aches. I find that you can read and re-read and there’ll always be a sneaky one that slips by. The best to to find your mistakes is to publish the post. As soon as it is online, any errors become glaringly obvious – shriek!
LOL Hester, I love you to bits.
Typos are the bane of my existence.
And then there those mistakes that my hands type what my ears hear instead of why my mind sees. Like they’re/their/there and are/our.
Funny, some people are really offended if you point out typos. I may hate the typos, but I sure appreciate it when people let me know about them. That way I can correct them quickly!
Thanks for the mention!
Hi Elise, and this comment shows everyone why you’re number one. 🙂 You don’t miss a thing. Thanks so much for stopping by.
Proofreading is one of the most important things any writer should do. Yummy tarts!
I would love to use Easy Recipe, and have tried downloading and installing a couple of times and basically WordPress won’t let me unless I self-host…but some day! I proofread until my eyes cross, and still some typos or grammatical issues get past me now and then. That is a gorgeous photo of the fruit tarts, by the way!
Yes, wordpress won’t allow 3rd party plugins on their servers I don’t think. Bugger about that. Thanks heaps for coming by.
I could crawl under a log and die when I see some of the typos in my posts. Luckily I can fix them easily but it would be much better not to make them. I’m just too keen to finish the post and get it out there. Sigh! I promise to try harder.
We all feel the same way, Kerry!!
I’m with the majority on this too. I take great care to avoid typos, re-reading posts several times…but every now and then a typo gets past me. In my “real” job I always come back to an article that I’ve written on a second day with fresh eyes — but that is a luxury I just don’t have with blogging. I have a two-hour window to write each post after the ponytails go to bed on Sunday nights, so it’s usually a mad-dash to get it out. What drives me crazy is when I notice a typo in a comment that I’ve made (usually in haste) and I can’t go back and fix it! Can you tell I have no thoughts on this topic? The colour in your fruit tart just jumps off the screen Maureen. So lovely!
I said the same thing earlier. I hate making a goof in a comment and then it’s gone forever – leaving me looking silly. I don’t spend heaps of time proofreading but I do preview and read every post before I hit publish.
When I come back in the morning I oft do NOT believe what the gremlins have done to my ovenight post 🙂 ! ‘I did not write this’ is the clear and absolute message!!!! And, since you may not be known amongst the world’s populace, the possibility of being misunderstood is more than ‘real’! I hate to think how I would feel had I a real blog: landing on those of others, meaning ‘awfully well’ and sounding like the proverbial ‘s-a’ may so likely be projected 😉 !
LOL Eha, I never thought that maybe it was gremlins and not me that made the errors! I feel so much better. 🙂
I’m pretty good at spotting other people’s spelling errors. Not so much my own as I KNOW what I wrote so that’s what I see. 🙂
Fun to see what you’ve done with the ready made ingredients. Sometimes you just don’t have the time or the energy to make everything from scratch.
You hit the nail on the head. We know what we wanted to say and assume that’s what we’ve written. Proofreading WILL catch the glaring errors – at least we’ll know if the words make sense. 🙂
I’m a freak about typos and I mean freak in that they jump off the page at me. I have found and notified many blog owners when I see them; not publicly but as a professional courtesy because I know it can happen.
This much I do know. I can scour my own posts (too often in the wee morning hours when my poor eyes are hardly in a scouring mood) and NOTHING…literally nothing works quite so well at finding typos as this one trick. Publish. Yep…why is that? Once I hit publish they all become clear. 🙂
LOL Barb. That’s when I see typos too…just hit “Publish” or “Send” and they standout like neon lights.
so true!
You are so right and I’m thankful people like you will let us know if we’ve missed something. It means a lot to me and I would think everyone would appreciate it.
Oh typos. I can spell but I can’t type and you know sometimes, when you’ve read something over and over again, you just miss it. A friend of mine who is a writer and journalist told me that if you don’t see it in the first four times you read something, you’ll never see it.
I agree completely with your friend but honestly, there are no errors on your blog, Lorraine. I know because I read it every day. 🙂
I agree with you, typos are a major pet peeve! Love your little tarts!
Thanks Laura. I get angry with myself if I’ve made a typo but I get over it quickly. 🙂
Oh, guilty as charged! I do try my best but sometimes I just don’t see the errors. And mine mostly occur as I’m editing because I’ll cut something out and move it somewhere else and sometimes in that process I just don’t link things up properly. I do try, Maureen! xx
I do that too! I move stuff around and then when I read it I think what the hell was I trying to say. LOL Your work is fantastic, Charlie. I love, love, love Hotly Spiced.
Haha, I totally agree that sometimes proofreading can be impotent))) Yet, there is no other way to proper spelling and mutual understanding. Sometimes typos simply make us smile, but sometimes we even do not understand the author’s messages.
That was my point, Jack. If we’re giving people directions to make a dish and we aren’t clear, our readers are going to be pissed off or they’ll laugh and not take us seriously. One ingredient today was week tea. 🙂 I wondered if it was weak tea or tea that had steeped for a week.
Oh gosh, now I’m worrying about my own spelling mistakes! I do proof read but some still slip through – oddly, I find it easier to see them when reading in Google Reader than on my blog itself, so I always try and check it that way just after publishing and quickly go and change if I spot an error! That works less well when I schedule posts though…
Gorgeous food pictures 🙂
If I have proofread my post, I just let it go and publish. I figure any huge baddies will catch my attention. Nobody expects every post to be perfect, just that we try.
Oh Maureen could you also write a post on the importance of grammar and punctuation? I know sometimes we all miss mistakes. It’s hard to check something when you’re reading it for what it should say instead of what it actually says but I think some don’t even check. It’s worrying that some may never have heard of flour because they’ve been using flower all their lives!
It would be funny if it were just one recipe with flower in it but we’ve rolled our eyes over it. A spell checker would never find that because flower is a word.
Haha I felt a little bit guilty reading this post. As a communications student who’s studied a few editing subjects this semester, I’m constantly correcting peoples’ spelling and grammatical errors yet my boyfriend always seems to find errors in my blog posts. Oops. Must be more diligent in proof-reading from now on!
My husband does the same thing. If I’ve mentioned him in a post I will always send him the link and he finds something wrong with every one. 🙂 Good thing I don’t write about him often.
I try so hard, but I still make simple typos! At least I’m not the only one!
You are NOT the only one by a long shot. Everyone commenting has agreed that we all do it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one on your blog though. You must catch them before I get there. 🙂
Thank you for the spell check and for the yummy desserts.
Ha, so true! I preview my blog posts as I write them, just before I hit “publish”, and again after it’s published. Hopefully it means I catch most, if not all of the errors.
I think most people commenting on this post preview and read their posts before hitting the publish button. We won’t catch them all but we’re going to catch more than the folks who don’t read what they’ve written at all.
That is an interesting topic here, Maureen, and touched me deeply. Let me ask you this: how many people do speak English? A fraction from 6 billion people that populate the world. And I believe that if someone has a courage not only learn English but blog in it, deserves some respect despite mistakes and etc. I agree with Lorraine, many times those mistakes is so easy to miss (I was a professional non-English journalist for many years and know it happens a lot. That’s why there is a job called editor, that reads with their fresh eyes and correct mistakes).
I don’t think that this post will “attract more visitors” to your blog. I, personally, don’t want to be slapped when coming here for something I worked so hard to achieve…
My dear Marina, I had no intention of offending anyone and this was definitely not aimed at native non-English speaking bloggers. Not one person commenting said they never made a misspelling error or a typo – we ALL do. However, our evidence shows that there are a lot of people who don’t read what they write, even once. That’s just fine if bloggers are happy with that. You have a fantastic blog as does Nami from Just One Cookbook, and Helene from Masala Herb or Simone from Junglefrog Cooking or Rosa from Rosa’s Yummy Yums. Your blogs are courageous in my view. I couldn’t imagine writing a blog in French or Russian or German or Bulgarian no matter how much I love those cuisines.
The errors I was talking about were where the blogger hadn’t read what she or he’d written. I wanted to point out that if the ingredients aren’t pretty close, then the blogger reduces the amount of traffic because they won’t show up in a search for ingredients.
I apologize if I have offended you, I never intended to do that.
Important post. We all make mistakes, and I certainly appreciate it when someone points them out. But I really do proofread like crazy, and my wife proofreads, too — I’m resigned to the fact that I’ll make mistakes, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do my best to catch and correct them. Something else I try to think about is being consistent in the way I use measurements and so forth. I’ve decided on the convention of always spelling out teaspoon and tablespoon (rather than tsp. and T.) because then there’s no possible misunderstanding. And I’m pretty consistently adding the F (for Fahrenheit) right after all my oven temperatures because I realize at least 20% of my readers are used to thinking in terms of Celsius! My biggest weaknesses is how I’ve labeled recipes — there I’ve been inconsistent, and I need to clean it up (I know I’ve used both “cookie” and “cookies” for example; why, I don’t know). Anyway excellent post. Thank you.
I love it when someone points out that I’ve made a goof. I’ve been really lucky in that regard. I’ve had a few people let me know right after I posted that I had a typo. I had read it but just missed it.
Lol, I’ve been guilty of typos, but boy have I read some whoppers. Those typos can take on a whole new meaning and not in a good way.
-Gina-
LOL I know what you mean. We all make them.
LOL!
As an ex-English teacher I am big on spelling and hate to see mistakes but sometimes they are just typos and all that takes is some proofreading. The actual spelling mistakes I guess they will never pick up because they think they are correct. But it can be as funny as some of the translate plugins. I have just installed one and hate to think how it is translating.
The translating plugins are quite funny. I translated a cake from Danish the other day and it was a scream.
Try as I may to re-read my posts and use spelling check I still make mistakes. I really appreciate it when someone sends me an email to point out a mistake or two. The thing I appreciate even more ,however, is people understanding that mistakes happen and not because of lack of care or attention. Bloggers are only human and for most of them blogging is a hobby and a passion not a profession.
Thank you for the reminder Maureen
We all make mistakes on our blogs – that’s just how it is. I know if I were trying to write for the folks in Jordan I’d have a lot more oopses than you ever would writing for the English crowd. I love your blog and I’m one of thousands.
I am definitely guilty of posting non-proofread blog posts all the time. I have to proofread methodically for my day job and sometimes, I just can’t bear to do it on nights and weekends as well. Until I see a giant error on one of my posts and am convinced they’ll take away my bar license for failure to proofread 🙂
I had a look at your blog and I didn’t see any goofs. I don’t think there’s a penalty for bad spelling or grammar. 🙂
Oh Maureen, I proofread ….so much but I am sure that I am guilty as charged ..like Charlie. This is important and makes us more professional. I think that if we want to be taken seriously , we have to try harder.
I’ve never seen an oops on your blog, Tania. If there were any typos, there wouldn’t be many. Thanks heaps for coming by.
It is amazing how I can read my post over and over and correct in my head blaring errors, but unfortunately not on screen. You’re right though it is those details ensure we’re taken seriously. GG
If you look at the top blogs, they proofread. I know we don’t all aspire to be a top blog but some of us do. 🙂
I agree with this post. Even I do grammer & spelling mistakes in my posts. But I always try my best to not to do so. I always type my posts in a word document & use the spell checker before copying to the blog. If I am not sure about a word, I just search that in Google. So I can find many posts with meaning of the word with correct spelling. Anyway I have to spend much time for a post. However, being English is not my mother language; I am still learning how to use it……:)
Love these cute little tarts….
Amy, I admire everyone who is not a native English speaker who blogs in English. It can’t be easy but you and so many others do it remarkably well.
Ha, this post is so so true. It drives me NUTS when I make a typo and post without noticing it!
I do proofread but like Lorraine says, after reading something 4 times, if you haven’t caught the error you never will.. (until after you publish and look at it the following day.)
I hate it when I find a typo (that I made). How embarrassing!
I know just how you feel. I cringe especially when I’ve made a stupid goof in a comment and can’t fix it.
I hate it when I find a typo in any of my posts. But I’m more bothered by poor vocabulary and grammar. Good post Maureen!
Thanks Roz,
I know what you mean and I know you’re not aiming that at non-native English speaking bloggers.
I couldn’t agree more! Thanks for shedding light on this, though I’m not perfect by any means, it’s definitely a pet peeve to see people who shamelessly abuse it time and time again.
We all make typos and occasional spelling mistakes – I’m certainly as guilty as the next person. I know if the blogger had read the post that called for margaring, they’d have caught it. or basking soda. I’m feeling bad that I’ve stepped on toes and never intended to do that.
Of course I didn’t know about this new website you guys are working on to promote us Easy Recipe users. That is absolutely fantastic. I’m so grateful for whatever help I can get!
OMG spelling! The lack of attention some folks give their work makes me sad. Just don’t tell me when you see a typo in my work!
It’s not launched yet – John’s still programming the search function. Hopefully soon. I want a husband back. I’m tired of hearing, “I’ve been parsing ingredients since 4am!”
In junior high, someone wrote, “Your an angle.” on my yearbook…double trouble :/ I can spot typos on others’ blogs in a nanosecond….but often a post of mine has been up for a day before I notice some glaring error! Your speedy desserts have me drooling 🙂
We’ve had angle food cake and angle hair pasts quite a few times already. It’s just a typo I think but I laugh every time.
You always bring up something important .Last time I visited it was about plugins, I saved that post which might be useful to me as I moved to a word press blog. I agree with you on proof reading our posts. The other day my daughter was reading one of my post and she pointed some of my mistakes. Point to be noted My Lord!
Those tarts are the prettiest dessert.
Congratulations on self hosting. I’m sure you’re liking it already!
M, you didn’t even touch on the US v Aus/Brit spelling differences! 🙂 Although right now the only food related one I can think of is “aluminium”. Actually, there’s “cumquat” too. 🙂
I tend to be a grammar nazi. I don’t like misuse of apostrophes (its? it’s?) and it drives me crazy when folks don’t use capitals at the beginning of their sentences. Seriously, I’ve seen whole posts written without a single capital. I know it’s supposed to be cool, but I can’t follow any blogs written in that style.
Darn it woman, now look what you’ve done. I’ll be ranting and raving all weekend now. 😉
LOL I didn’t mean to start anything. I’m going to make a new post so we can forget this one. 🙂
I do proofread but frequently my fingers do not cooperate. I hope readers will alert me when they spot a typo in my posts.
I feel the same way!
I’m a technical writer/editor so I see way too many mistakes on not only blogs, but university websites! However, I can say from experience that it’s easier to review and edit another person’s work than it is to edit your own. That’s why I always write a post and then come back in a couple of days and proof it. It’s much easier to find mistakes once you have stepped away from it. Great post!
Wow.. it’s just so disappointing that someone wouldn’t proofread, having said that, I sincerely hope there aren’t any dire errors on my site! I say “dire”, because if a blogger can’t get figure out how to use spell-check, why would I want to risk trying a recipe where a tablespoon could be mixed up with a teaspoon.. just sayin’… Love your tarts and looking forward to your new website! xx
I understand and I really wasn’t trying to offend anyone and I did with this post. It’s not my nature to be insulting and at least one thought I was singling out sites for ridicule. I just wanted people to realize that folks DO read blog recipes and today one came through with 3 bacon rashes. I was laughing so hard all the while shaking my head.
Gorgeous food photos, Maureen – By the way, grammar and spelling are hot buttons for me so I loved your post 🙂
great article Maureen, really made me laugh. I was always onto the kids when they were growing up about spelling correctly, I was a secretary for many years and it was amazing h ow many bosses didn’t know how to spell, luckily I did. That being said I have recently made up some inspirational quotes and photos and some food related funny ones and even after going over them a few times to check spelling before I put them on the website I missed a couple and my mum, who is 80, picked me up on a couple, now I know how my kids felt! Think I will have to employ her as my proofreader
oops forgot to say I love your last photo, very vibrant and jumps out of the screen
Thank you for the wonderful reminder. If there are some mistakes between L and R, that’s probably me. I still get confused with these two (Japanese have a sound that is in between R and L). I read many times before posting, but I get surprised to see some errors after many months later. Sigh! By the way, I love the last photo… so pretty!!!
Hi Maureen – in actual fact, Google’s search algorithm takes many, many, *many* mis-spellings into account. From checking my organic search referral statistics, I can’t tell how many referrals I’ve had from horrifically mutilated search terms: fruticake, markerel are too fun ones… someone even found my site by searching for “can you grief a brief discription about corriander ( spice)”. Those aren’t even the worst by far… it’s really clever, but I completely agree on the importance of decent spelling. I don’t think the algorithm works the other way around – that is, someone searching for “markerel” might find your mackerel recipe, but conversely, someone searching for “mackerel” probably won’t be dining on “markerel” that evening 😉
Ima dying luffing rite neow. Thets to phunny for werds.
Man I hope my site didn’t come up as one of the ones who misspell. xx
Maureen, I’m a stickler for spelling and proofreading, too, but there have been occasions when a misspelled word escapes my notice and some kind soul brings it to my attention. Generally in the comment section. 😉 Thanks for your keen observations! One word that seems to be interchangeably incorrect these days is “your” (as an inadvertent substitute for “you’re.”) Drives me wild… oh well!