Another Pair of Ayes

Aye, where have I been, mates? Working, meandering, mulling, malling, and walking. That sort of thing. As for mulling, I'm a big believer in the value of having another pair of eyes to mull over one's document, especially if I am hired as that pair of eyes, naturally (since I am a gainfully self-employed editor and writer). Yesterday I encountered one of those lovely gems you can't make up, as if it came straight from one of the novels of Peter DeVries, a favorite of mine (I have a collection of his first editions). I was reviewing a document for a client who was trumpeting the virtues of certain empirical educational benefits to his client. It showed up twice in the document as "lesions learned." I thoroughly enjoyed this; fortunately, so did my client. We laughed together with a sense of shared relief. (If he were to read this, I am confident he would take no offense, since none is intended.) Alas, a computerized spellchecker did not alert either one of us to this potential embarrassment. I am glad I caught it. Granted, the eye plays tricks, and it is quite likely that the reader would have performed a visual gestalt sleight of hand, so to speak in mixed metaphors, and have read the phrase as "lessons learned," as intended. But maybe not. "Lesions learned" can now be invoked as a ringing example to other clients of the value of editorial review. I happen to believe in the old-fashioned notion that, especially with technical documents, accuracy counts for something. And if the reader were to accept an oversight such as "lesions learned," he or she would have planted a mental seed in his or her head (where else?) that would slightly doubt the veracity of more substantive issues in the rest of the document. (After all, what's a decimal place or two?) Given the right circumstances, of course, a decimal point or two means life or death, speaking of lesions. (Yes, learning can leave scars.) Maybe I should form a new social networking group, The Lesions of Honor. All a-bored!