Posted by Jonathan Labaree on September 22, 2003 at 02:37:49 from 24.198.196.209 user JLabaree.
In Reply to: Re: Proof Reading (was Winter Holiday Reading Level) posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on September 21, 2003 at 16:26:21:
I’d be a bit surprised if my professor’s misreading of “varnished sprits” derived from a previous knowledge of the sentence in its pre-Richards form – I certainly had no idea of this until Andrew’s post. My prof had little experience with the sea (none, really), so “sprit” would mean nothing to him. I believe he simply saw “spirits” instead of “sprits” because that’s what he knew. To be honest, I don’t remember if he read “varnished” or “vanished”, but I suspect the latter since it makes more sense in context of “spirits.” As stated on another thread, we place heavy emphasis on context when we read. Given that we often don’t really look at the middle letters of a word (unless, of course, we’re supposed to be proof-reading), it would be easy to make the mistake even if you hadn’t seen the earlier incorrect version – especially if you don’t know what a sprit is.
It’s amazing, really, that Andrew brought this up as I was thinking about this episode only a few days ago as I listened to the weekly jazz program that this same professor does on my college’s radio station (he’s still there nearly 20 years later, though now as a dean). I don’t live near my alma mater , but I can listen to the radio station over the Internet . In fact, it made me open my copy of Conrad’s collected stories and reacquaint myself with a few of them.
Not sure why, but I’m surprised Thames barges’ sprits were varnished. I would have thought it would rub off pretty easily. The sprit on my little peapod is just made from a bit of a small spruce tree and not finished at all, but the other sprits I’m familiar with are oiled, I believe. They are all on small boats, though, nothing of the scale of Thames barge.