Muphry's Law is an adage that states that "if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written". The name is a deliberate misspelling of "Murphy's Law".
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History
John Bangsund of the Victorian Society of Editors (Australia) identified Muphry's Law as "the editorial application of the better-known Murphy's Law"[1][2] and set it down in 1992 in the Society of Editors Newsletter.[3]
The law, as set out by Bangsund, states that:
(a) if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written;
(b) if an author thanks you in a book for your editing or proofreading, there will be mistakes in the book;
(c) the stronger the sentiment expressed in (a) and (b), the greater the fault;
(d) any book devoted to editing or style will be internally inconsistent.[3]
It goes on to say:
Muphry's Law also dictates that, if a mistake is as plain as the nose on your face, everyone can see it but you. Your readers will always notice errors in a title, in headings, in the first paragraph of anything, and in the top lines of a new page. These are the very places where authors, editors and proofreaders are most likely to make mistakes.[1]
Muphry's Law may be interpreted to be in accordance to a previous quote from Ambrose Bierce:
In neither taste nor precision is any man's practice a court of last appeal, for writers all, both great and small, are habitual sinners against the light; and their accuser is cheerfully aware that his own work will supply (as in making this book it has supplied) many "awful examples". ("Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults" 1909)[4]
Other names and variations
Similar laws have also been coined, usually in the context of online communication, under names including Skitt's Law,[5] Hartman's Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation (or The Law of Prescriptive Retaliation),[5] and McKean's Law.[6][7]
A further variation states that flaws in a printed or published work will only be discovered after it is printed and not during proofreading.[8]
Examples
Stephen J. Dubner described learning of the existence of Muphry's law in the Freakonomics section of The New York Times in July 2008. He had accused The Economist of a typo in referring to Cornish pasties being on sale in Mexico, assuming that "pastries" had been intended and only familiar with the word "pasties" with the meaning of nipple coverings. A reader had alerted him to the existence of the law, and The Economist had responded by sending him a Cornish pasty.[9] As Dubner's mistake was the result of ignorance (of the existence of pasties), rather than a typo or grammatical error, it might be said[by whom?] that it was not within the spirit of Muphry's law, as made more explicit by McKean's law[original research?].
See also
References
- ^ a b "Muphry's law". Canberra Society of Editors newsletter. November 2003. http://www.editorscanberra.org/Nov03.htm#muph. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
- ^ Mackenzie, Janet (2004). The Editor's Companion. Cambridge University Press. pp. 123. ISBN 0521605695. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CSUtOYO9AmAC&pg=PA123&lpg=PA123&dq=muphry's+law&source=web&ots=3LZqVxQ7Js&sig=uFcShvjNTWpThLHWc_PRsLEyacs&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPA123,M1. Retrieved 2008-07-19.
- ^ a b Bangsund, John (March 1992). "Scenes of editorial life: Muphry's law". John Bangsund's Threepenny Planet. http://home.pacific.net.au/~bangsund/muphry.htm. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
- ^ Zimmer, Benjamin (2005-11-12). "Bierce's law?". Language Log. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002641.html. Retrieved 2008-07-19.
- ^ a b Liberman, Mark (April 4, 2005). "Hartman's Law Confirmed Again". Language Log. http://158.130.17.5/~myl/languagelog/archives/002035.html. Retrieved 2009-02-13.
- ^ "Erin McKean (quoted from Verbatim)". Wordspy. http://www.wordspy.com/WAW/McKean-Erin.asp. Retrieved 2008-07-19.
- ^ Quinion, Michael (10 November 2001). "Verbatim". World Wide Words newsletter (596). http://www.worldwidewords.org/reviews/verbatim.htm. Retrieved 2009-10-19. "Erin McKean described what she calls McKean’s Law: “Any correction of the speech or writing of others will contain at least one grammatical, spelling, or typographical error.”".
- ^ Bloch, Arthur (May 18, 2000). Murphy's Law: Lawyers: Wronging the Rights in the Legal Profession!. PSS Adult. ISBN 084317580X.
- ^ Dubner, Stephen J. (2008-07-15). "Pasties, Pasties, Everywhere". The New York Times: Freakonomics. http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/pasties-pasties-everywhere/. Retrieved 2008-07-21.
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