“...and
the water as a combination of hydrogen and nitrogen (sic)...” (The
Fugitive, Marcel Proust)
"He
was now approximately three-quarters, or that would be sixty percent,
across." (Tenth of December, George Saunders)
A
spelling mistake is a different concept that an erratum. You make a
spelling mistake because you do not know a rule, but an erratum
(unavoidable, as all the editors know) is such a big mistake that it
is always because of coincidence or bad luck. We could speak about
scientific errata too. Did Proust ignore that water is made of
hydrogen and oxygen? It is unlikely. Doesn´t George Saunders know
how to calculate a basic percentage? This is more likely, though it
could be a sort of joke.
