I just went through one of my random searches of my Residua and came upon a piece of writing in which one among several addenda contained no less than two typos. One name was conspicuously missing a possessive apostrophe in one sentence, and the word “ago” was misspelled as “age” in another. Aargh! What is worse, the addendum in question counted no more than a hundred words. How many typos like these will I discover in my searches in the years to come? And how many more will I miss in perpetuity? For my sins, I am not concerned with many a silly thing I have written over the years, but I am alarmed by the typos. Even more, they positively horrify me. With more than three-million words to my magnum opus, there must be thousands of them. Alas, they are residua for true! And they are all mine without fail.

Addendum I (September 19, 2015)

Today I came upon so many typos in my writings that I started panicking at some point. If I could find such a load of boo-boos in one day, what could I expect in the days, weeks, months, and years yet to come? The best I could do was to fix each one of them without any further thought. For instance, a German name appeared twice in a piece of writing, once with an umlaut, and the second time without it. First I had to check the right spelling of the name, and then I fixed the piece. Similarly, I discovered that one of the footnotes cited at the end of a piece lacked a corresponding number in brackets in the body of the text. The problem was easy enough to fix. Another example was that the first addendum extending a piece of writing with several addenda lacked its proper number. And so on. All of these typos were quite minor, to be sure, but they still drove me nuts. Although it would take me an enormous amount of time, I am thinking once again about a systematic reading of my magnum opus for the simple reason of discovering and fixing as many boo-boos as possible. From cover to cover, the job would take me a few years. But I would drive residua for true to a bare minimum. The bliss.

Addendum II (February 23, 2017)

As time goes by, I am thinking about a systematic reading of my Residua with ever-greater zeal. One reason for the exercise are good old typos, of which there are quite a few, but another is systematic copyediting. The former is obvious enough, but the latter will take utmost care. One of the main reasons for careful copyediting is the mishmash of American and British spelling. American spelling is my choice, and I will have to make sure it is consistent throughout. This is easier said than done, for there is a grey zone between the two spellings. In addition, there are many niceties, such as the use of the hyphen, which has changed over the forty odd years. For instance, “love-making” has turned into “lovemaking.” I am also thinking about Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, and Slovenian diacritical marks for letters such “ch,” “sh,” “zh,” and so forth. Years ago, they were not available even in the most popular wordprocessing systems, but that has changed as of late. Given that my magnum opus centers on the Balkans, it is time to make sure all the names are spelled correctly with all their diacritical marks. On top of all this, I must make sure that all my pieces of writing are up to scratch in terms of English language proper. The job would take me several years, to be sure, but it would be well worth my while in my dotage. By and by, residua for true would become no less than precious. Gems to cherish!