In the first edition of my book, 83 In the Shade, I misused the word "prospective" twice. But I somehow managed to use it wrong in two different contexts. I wrote: "...in their prospective High School yearbooks..." when I meant "respective" and then, in describing a stage set "...it was one of those forced prospective things..." instead of "perspective." I know the meanings of all those words; but they came out of my brain as such. Like when you write "here" instead of "hear" (or vice-versa); but since I at least spelled them correctly, the spelling algorithm didn't alert me. Then I overlooked them and they got into print. I fixed the first misuse; but the second one is still in the book.
Now, the character of Michael McNamara is pretty smart. He's something of a know-it-all. But even know-it-alls get some things wrong once in a while. So, I thought, maybe I'll just leave it in and the reader can wonder if it was intentional or not. That the meaning of "prospective" was something that had gotten away from Michael. Like, for the longest time I thought "chaos" was pronounced cha (as in cha-cha)-os.
But of course, Michael's brain is also my brain, so I cringe at this mistake. But quite frankly, I am tired of tinkering around with the book on KindleDirect. So I'm going to leave it in. Now, I still get confused about the difference between "prospective" and "prospect"; so I'm also going to dub it a lucky word. As in, the prospective prospects of my book are practically perfect.
I hope that puts it into perspective.
Now, the character of Michael McNamara is pretty smart. He's something of a know-it-all. But even know-it-alls get some things wrong once in a while. So, I thought, maybe I'll just leave it in and the reader can wonder if it was intentional or not. That the meaning of "prospective" was something that had gotten away from Michael. Like, for the longest time I thought "chaos" was pronounced cha (as in cha-cha)-os.
But of course, Michael's brain is also my brain, so I cringe at this mistake. But quite frankly, I am tired of tinkering around with the book on KindleDirect. So I'm going to leave it in. Now, I still get confused about the difference between "prospective" and "prospect"; so I'm also going to dub it a lucky word. As in, the prospective prospects of my book are practically perfect.
I hope that puts it into perspective.
