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Of Faulty Members and Smoothened Text
I'm skimming through the book "Smashing HTML5" by Bill Sanders in my O'Reilly Safari Books Online account. Unlike most people, I suppose, I read things like dedications and prefaces. Maybe that's because as an author myself, I like to take some time with those pieces that are sort of meta-content that help put the book into context.
Well, this material is chock full of unintended humor in this book.
First, the author says one person "worked as an able editor to clarify and smoothen everything I wrote." Smoothen, eh? I guess you didn't let her see this particular paragraph?
Then he describes "one terrible moment when a missing semicolon wrecked havoc on a program." Ah, umm, I'm not sure, but I think you mean "wreaked havoc." Presumably, "wrecked havoc," assuming it would be proper at all, would mean the opposite; by wrecking havoc, it would bring order, no?
But this all gets explained in the "About the Author" section, which starts out by identifying Mr. Sanders as "one of the founding faulty members" of a program at the University of Hartford.
By this time, I'm on the floor.
I mean to cast no aspersions here, by the way. I know this stuff happens. I know how it happens. It's happened to me. But seldom have I seen such a brilliant confluence of errors stacked on errors as this, and it was just too funny not to share. No offense, Mr. Sanders; as far as I can tell so far, you've written a good book here.
