strange type

We live in a world that is structured, created, in many ways, by language. All those ancient texts, lovingly passed down from generation unto generation. Consider, then, the impact of a single typographical error.

I once saw a comic strip that featured members of an early church council, talking about the prerequisites for the consecrated Christian life.

Church Elder: .... poverty, charity, and obedience...

Scribe (nodding off from the boredom): [writes] ... poverty, chastity, and obedience...

And the rest is history.


Strange Type

I wrote: in the dark cavern of our birth.
The printer had it tavern, which seems better:
But herein lies the subject of our mirth,
Since on the next page death appears as dearth.
So it may be that God's word was distraction,
Which to our strange type appears destruction,
Which is bitter.


(Malcolm Lowry)


Interestingly, the textual history of Lowry's poems is unusually complicated. Even the title of this poem is provisional - it was given by his first editor Earle Birney; Lowry himself left the poem untitled. His second editor, Kathleen Sherf, read the last word as 'better' - but Birney's version reads it as 'bitter', which seems better.
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