Typos make me nervous

What I have always feared about writing a column are the typos or proofreading errors that would make me look stupid or more stupid.

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And it came to pass again last Monday. In the first para of my column that day, there was this line: “Tell the yayas that ‘how’ water is hot.” Someone asked me: “What is ‘how’ water?”

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It should have been “hot water is hot.” Crazy statement but it was intended to be that way. Didn’t someone say that punning, which I love to do, is the lowest form of wit? So there.

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Another typo in the same column that needs clarification was “won’t.” It should have been “wont” (no apostrophe) meaning “accustomed” or “used to.”

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There was a time when some typos got me in queer street. I said or I wrote that a high society matron loved “public adulation.” What was printed? Public without the “1.”

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But here’s one typo that got me nervous. I wrote: “Foreign communities are enjoying our government’s support.” You know what happened (that sent chills running up and down my spine)? This: “Communities” came out “communists.”

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From a reader who requested anonymity: “Sir, I have observed there’s one radio station that keeps playing Tagalog songs all night long. OK lang. I love to listen to music especially in the wee hours when I could not sleep. But when a radio station keeps repeating some Tagalog songs all nights, I get suspicious.”

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The reader did not say what made him suspicious. Is it the same thing that also makes me suspicious?

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A friend in the US says in an e-mail message; “We Pinoys take great pride in claiming that some of our foods are the best in the world. But a food guide in Australia does not include a single Pinoy food in the list of favorite Asian foods.” Not even our adobo?

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My friend says the list of Asian foods he saw in Australia included Thai, India, Pakistani, Singaporean, Japanese, Indonesian, Korean, Malaysian, Vietnamese and Chinese/Taiwanese foods. No Filipino food in the food guide of popular Asian foods. Where, oh, where is the adobo which we Pinoys take great pride in? Oh, my goodness!