Why Is It So Easy to Write 'The The' and Not Notice?

in #funny6 years ago (edited)

I'm guilty of publishing posts with the the.

Some are so old, they cannot be altered.
The the the must stay there, forever.

NoNamesLeftToUse - The The Lake.jpeg
The The Lake

The The

The the easiest typo to overlook.

I already know what you're thinking.

"Who cares! This is a shit post."

And you're probably right, but do you have to be so rude?

The The Lake

It was supposed to be called The Lake.

Unfortunately, when I went to save the the file, I called it The The Lake.

I didn't produce that image with the the intention of sharing it here either. A simplistic picture of the the world isn't something I'd normally work on. I was messing around, killing time, thinking about the the lake. That's all.

The The Lake. Once I noticed how I made that mistake, I simply could not resist coming here to tell everyone. Then, while responding to a comment under my previous post, I did a quick read of the the post I wrote and noticed another the the hidden in plain sight.

I wondered if anyone else noticed.

I've Seen Many of The The The's

In my day.

Our brains must naturally stutter and go fizzle pop when it comes to the the word 'the'. That's my unscientific conclusion.

I did find an article though. It was boring but it did say:

The reason we don’t see our own typos is because what we see on the screen is competing with the version that exists in our heads.

Basically, when we're proofreading our work, we're expecting certain words to show up because we wrote them. We know what's coming, so it's easy to miss the the the's, because we think we're so perfect, we'd never make a mistake with the the word 'the', so we don't pay much attention to that portion of the the sentence, naturally.

When someone else reads it, that's their first trip down the the little string of words you made there, so they'll likely catch the the the and start thinking you're some kind of nincompoop who doesn't know how to write properly, or worse.

Many editors will say:

That's why you need us.

To them I say:

No, you need my mistakes, so be grateful for the fact I make them, or you'll be jobless and living on the streets.

So, Anyway

I hope you've all learned something here today.

Enjoy the the art if you want to.

Have a nice day!

linebreak1
Credits:
All images seen here were produced digitally, by me.
"The The The's."

Images © 2018 @NoNamesLeftToUse. All rights reserved.

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That's why the little red squiggly lines are so helpful with spellcheck. I don't know where I'd be without spell check.

I once dated a girl who clearly didn't use Microsoft Word very often. She wrote me a letter in word and when she handed it to me she said "I don't know where all the red squiggly lines went when I printed it, I liked them".

I don't think I was with her for her brains.

Yeah, spellcheck is awesome. Normally, I spell words correctly. Sometimes, I feel like being lazy, mash the keys so the word is close enough, then do a quick right click and select the word from the list. As easy as fixing spelling errors is, I still see a lot around here.

The the best tip for dealing with with this phenomena is is, when you you proofread set the font to a a monospaced font. Or if you you already write in a monospaced font, set to a a variable spaced font when you proofread. Either way, the switch is sometimes enough to knock us us out of our heads and help us see what is actually in in front of us.

That's some good good advice. The Steemit author might benefit by switching to or from night mode to do their proofreading as well.

I decided to go back and give my last post one little extra proof read a couple of hours after I'd posted it, I about passed out. There were so many typos scattered through out. I edited (hopefully all of) them out repeating to myself over and over "I hope no one read this yet".

Typos are assholes.

"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

They might be assholes, but they still get the point across.

Wow, I read that whole thing in one fell-swoop. I thought I was really smart, until I got to your last line. Now I'm just back to normal. Sigh.

I already know what you're thinking.

"Who cares! This is a shit post."

And you're probably right, but do you have to be so rude? << hahaha thanks for the laugh!!!

I don't EVER notice, hence why I have SO many typos in all of my posts. I don't care! I still like your post with "the the" and I like this "the the" post because it made me smile.

That's all that matters.

So the "the the" haters can suck it.

That was an important part of the 'lesson' here today. They always teach us to own our work and be confident. The pros will say something like, "Never make your readership feel as if they're wasting their time."

But just look at how many wonderfully chilled out and down to earth people I get to meet when I break all the rules.

The The The's were a band? What a great name!

Check this song out!

Errors jump out at me and demand to be noticed. I only hope I notice them in my own stuff before I post. And 4-leaf clovers are the same way, like errors in patches of regular clover. I love the sky in your picture and the land reminds me of the lake but my lake and not your lake.

I was going for that rare late evening orange reflecting off of a thunderstorm cloud look. Have you ever seen that before? Conditions and timing have to be perfect and one of the only places I ever get to see it is at the lake.

Yes, I have.

I noticed a the the yesterday, actually. The the's are such harmless mistakes though. I hate when I get words mismatched. Advice v. advise; scaring v. scarring. I really love those little spelling differences, which I guess is why I hate screwing them up.

The the is quite common. I see it often.

Look what I did here one day:

Sneak Peak196-2016.10.29-02.02.11.jpg

I just acted like I did that on purpose...

It took me a couple seconds to notice that. With your sense of humor/mysterious meanings I think you can easily get away with those sort of errors.

Yeah, that's true. If you look that up, you'll notice it means something like: to sneak away and get high. I just left it because I thought it was hilarious. The post was about some lame attempt at getting support and attention to my work though. One my early miserable failures.

That should be added to urban dictionary, ideally with a link. You have a lot of phrases that would enlighten the general internet population.

No failures, just creative process that had to leave the brain and end up somewhere. That's how I see it anyway.

I think my favorite is when someone is trying to write "a part of" and instead write "apart of" because it can give the sentence the entire opposite meaning.

Ooo, yeah that's a good one.

I have difficulty with "passed" and "past" occasionally. In the middle of my writing thought I just can't wrap my head around them.

I really wish we could edit posts past 7 days. I understand that blockchains can't be edited and I don't care. It's an aesthetic thing.

I had some life business to take care of for a while and I missed being able to edit the the latest post in my series. So when I finish the next part, I won't be able to edit in a link to it. That bothers me.

There was a time when we had 30 days, I think. It was more than seven days, that I know for sure.

As for the link, you could always use the comment section and vote it up to the top. I think we can still comment on old posts? I haven't tried in awhile.

Tell me honestly, did I finally slip one past you... or did you just choose not to entertain my shenanigans? :D

Just being able to link or have a "recommend by author" after the fact something has closed would be such a quality of life change.

Well, we have Grammarly now. Time to get them out on the streets. bloody editors!

Grammarly creeps me out. I'm not a fan of anything that watches everything I type into a device or browser.

Lol.
In that case, ive got my eyes on you.

Where is this band from? I didn't know they existed until today.

England. Not sure if they still exist, or if they stayed in England.

I blame the markdown format for all typos. It never looks the same as when it comes out. My pet peeve is when the @grammarnazi comes on my post three seconds after posting to suggest a changing a verb form!! Worst suggesting that I spelled gramar incorectly.

This is why we have an "edit post" option.

"The The Lake" is magical. Did it come by accident or did you plan it to take on that life of its own?

I haven't been visited by that bot you speak of, yet. I've seen some of it's suggestions though and I think it's logic needs a bit of a tuneup.

Sky, water, and distant trees. Was no accident. More like a rehearsal that ended up being a main event.

Haha - thank god for mistake makers that give work to others. This is funny. My husbands' brain fizzles and pops all the time, writing the the and and - and he writes it on the board as a school teacher and the kids take the piss. No idea why he does it - but it's ALL THE TIME.

I think writing often might be putting our minds in a state that makes it much easier to make these errors. Focusing too much on the steps ahead rather than what's happening now.

Actually that's the whole reason Beta readers (and Editors) are needed, you can't find your mistakes easily when you know what the "true" version should be.

That's also the reason I recommend writers to never critique their own stories unless a lot of time passes, because the words they choose will make sense all the time when they have the actual scenes in their heads.

Well, though I know this... I'm guilty of publishing fast, cause I don't really care... But anything that is published for the readers sake (not myself) needs to be proof read, preferably by someone else before publishing.

When I'm publishing fast on this blog, I tend to do the proofreading as I go. I know some folks out there like to write up an entire rough draft, then clean after. For me, the beginning has been completed by the time I get to the end.

The definite article being used in best way possible - 'back to back'.
Back to back - just like my typos :-)

Indeed many of us are not good proofreaders myself included. One must wear a different hat when proofreading. Excitement kicks in and maybe even a couple beers. Enjoyed the post my friend

"Dilly, Dilly".

Don't waste time considering the meaning or applicability of this comment. I don't know either.

It's all good. Have fun dillydallying. That's all I'm doing.

I don't know how many "the thes" I have posted but I have a lot of "and ands" and and it is the worst thing to find it after the post is too old and and there is nothing you can do about it.

If I look hard enough, I'm sure I'll find a stupid mistake in nearly everything I've published. I read the damn things several times including after everything is said and done, yet they still slip through the cracks.

I feel your pain. I used to still find stuff on college papers after spending days editing them. Some asshole professor even gave me a B because of a single typo once.

The article reminded me of when people talk and add "you know" at the end of everything they say. I wonder why when we write our minds don't track that annoying habit.

I do that, ya know. I do it on purpose too, for fun.

Depending on the situation, but on most occasions, I prefer my words to speak. Adding in those little tidbits adds character, ya know.

I was tired and in a hurry and forgot to mention I really liked your painting. Ya know. lol.

If only we would accept the the the's, both editors and authors would have an easier life.
I'll vote for nonameslefttouse as member on the next grammar-nazi-dictionary-board-meeting

As long as they have something to eat and cool chairs, sign me up! Just don't tell them about my long sentences that leave people gasping for air once they finish reading because I might get my hands slapped and I need these things to be able do a lot of stuff.

Nice post , you are so different .
Good job , carry on .

Thanks for sharing @nonameslefttouse
Upvote you .

Hey @nonameslefttouse, this is the one of best post shared by you.
And memories are always valuable for us.
Only such pics have power to remind us about our past creativity..
Thanks for sharing
And don't miss to support @devkapoor423

People like you should find a new sandbox to play in. Your comments are insincere and annoying. “Great post, I love you! BTW, go and support me!”

And upvoted by your great self! I guess you don't need our support after all. Have a great life!

What a colour in lake 😍

That's the the lake.

yes i know 😍

I always run into that that myself....

Ha haa, love it. Without all the the's, you would have no job, editorial staff. Though I've never had an editor. But I can surely relate to the problem. I've seen some of mine succumb to or or and to to and a few others. And as for the brain, I don't know how many times I write something I like that is a bit off-kilter, and I re-read it, and time after time, my brain reads it differently than the page. So I usually succumb. Figuring that if I (in bold, no way to do that here) can't read it correctly, the public certainly won't. But I LIKE it that way...whinge whinge. This whole writing thing is a fun, maddeningly odd endeavour. Though I think they should make 'double wording' part of spellcheck.

And nincompoop is one of the best descriptors ever. I don't use it enough, even though I was called one many times growing up.