"...the fearful misprints that make nonsense and the far, far more fearful misprints that make sense."

[Sadly, something I've had to deal with more times than I wish to think about when blogging. lol]

Most journalists abound in jokes on the subject of misprints- the fearful misprints that make nonsense and the far, far more fearful misprints that make sense. For only those which are reasonable can really be ruinous. If the printer alters, 'He parted from Chloe with a final kiss,' and presents it as, 'He parted from Chloe with a final kilb,' nothing worse will result than a mild mystification- a sort of delicate mist into which the figures of the two loves will fade away. But if the printer takes the phrase, 'He parted from Chloe with a final kiss,' and turns it into 'He parted from Chloe with a final kick,' a distinctly different note will be struck in the whole romance; a definite but diverse shade of meaning will be conveyed to the reader, and yet one which his experience of the relations of the sexes may lead him to accept as intelligible and intentional. The reader may regard it as merely a touch of the new realistic method; slightly stark; just a trifle Neo-Primitive; but obviously an authentic tranche de la vie. But the original romantic writer, who really intended Chloe to be kissed and not kicked, will be distinctly annoyed.

-November 3, 1928, Illustrated London News