Proofreading is crucial in the employment world.  Don’t treat accuracy or clarity casually. Save that for your MySpace site, Christmas cards and grocery lists.

An Iowa college recently published an unfortunate and offensive typo.  Linch was printed instead lunch in a black history item. The entry was supposed to read “Black History Lunch and Learn,” but was printed as “Black History Linch and Learn.”

The problem, of course, is that the two words sound the same yet have different meanings. Lynch means “to put to death (as by hanging) by mob action without legal sanction” (Merriam-Webster), and is associated with terrorizing and disenfranchising blacks, especially in post–Civil War America.  Not something that goes well with lunch, to be sure.

Before the mistake was discovered, 10,000 school handbooks had already been distributed. The president of the college apologized for the incident, provided stickers to cover the entry, and said the typo would be corrected in the next print run.

But, the damage was done.  All it took to avoid this was focused and sober proofreading by the right people.

No reason to get hung out to dry on these things, folks, just proofread.