stop, in a final revise rather than risk the
possibilities of blundering caused by the
unlocking of the type. Of course a large
number of misprints are far from amusing,
while a sense of fun will sometimes be

obtained by a trifling transposition of
letters. Authors must be on the alert for
misprints, although ordinary misspellings
should not be left for them by the printer's
reader; but they are usually too intent on
the structure of their own sentences to
notice these misprints. The curious point
is that a misprint which has passed through
proof and revise unnoticed by reader and
author will often be detected immediately
the perfected book is placed in the author's
hands. The blunder which has hitherto
remained hidden appears to start out from
the page, to the author's great disgust.
One reason why misprints are overlooked
is that every word is a sort of pictorial
object to the eye. We do not spell the
word, but we guess what it is by the first
and last letters and its length, so that a
wrong letter in the body of the word is
easily overlooked.

It is an important help to the editor of
a corrupt text to know what misprints are
the most probable, and for this purpose