Transcription Errors

I don't have much respect for newspapers these days, and I guess I should cut small-scale papers a little slack, because they don't have the resources that their big-city brethren have, but just look at this.

Someone brought a copy of the local paper, the Moncton Times and Transcript, in to work this afternoon, and I was poking through it while on my break. Here's a cutting from page one, which is to say the front page:

At least it was below the fold. "It's", indeed.

Here's a clipping from page three:

"Accelerates" instead of "accelerants". Tsk.

And this is from the obituaries-classifieds-etceteras page:

No, the Blessed Virgin hasn't miraculously appeared in a crossword puzzle: that's just the thin paper. But look! "O Mary conceived with sin...."

Someone at the Times and Transcript is going to hell!

The error isn't quite on the scale of the famous 1631 version of the King James Bible, popularly known as the "Wicked Bible" for its omission of the word "not" in the seventh commandment, which is more usually printed as "Thou shalt not commit adultery". It's pretty bad, though. The Catholic dogma of the immaculate conception holds that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was, unlike any other human born before or since, conceived without the stain ("macula") of original sin, thus making her a worthy vessel for the saviour of all mankind. "O Mary conceived with sin" is a blasphemy and a heresy into the bargain. I hope some clumsy typesetter is saying a whole host of Hail Marys.

Hmmm. Never known to fail? There are none that can resist your power? Whatever you asked will be given to you? I can think of all kinds of ways to abuse this sort of power, but I guess I'll just ask the Most Beautiful Flower of Mount Carmel to provide every newspaper with a squad of trained and vigilant proofreaders.