I’m not quite sure how I blinked and 10 years passed, but last month I woke up and realized it had been a whole decade since I jumped into the world of editing and publishing. It has been a good decade, and in honor of the mile marker, I thought I’d share with you 10 of the errors I’ve stopped from going into print over the past 10 years.

{Note: I have omitted the authors and titles of these books to protect the relevant parties, but rest assured, these are all real quotes from real books.}

1. My daddy was a steal worker, and my granddaddy was a steal worker.
   [Sounds like a kind of shady business to me.]
2. Gelatins 2:16 clearly states that human deeds can never save us.
   [Shockingly, the book of Gelatins made it through spell-check but not canonization.]
3. I was blessed by marring a Christian lady and having three kids.
   [The blessing doesn’t quite sound mutual when you put it that way.]
4. As a society, we’ve developed an erroneous belief system that is about as subtle as a rattle snack.
   [Hmm, must be a Southern delicacy, up there with fried okra.]
5. Joshua 2: Rehab helps the Israelite spies
   [The earliest evidence of a successfully implemented 12-step program . . . ]
6. But the Pharisees hardened their hearts toward Jesus’ wisdom. . . . They planned to deny pubicly that he was Messiah.
   [I have nothing further to say.]
7. This relationship is called “the hookup,” referring to repeated one nightstands.
   [I’m getting a mental image of row after row of identical bedroom furniture. . . .]
8. Does that mean God wants us to never plop down on the coach?
   [I’m not sure he addresses that particular issue, but it does sound rather uncomfortable for all parties.]
9. “You don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blond and naked” (Revelation 3:17).
   [Apparently, God prefers brunettes.]
10. From an endnote source: (Colorado Springs: Multnomah Boobs; 2009), 275.
    [With apologies to the lovely people who work at Multnomah.]

“There are two typos of people in this world: those who can edit and those who can’t.” —Jarod Kintz

“Only Southerners have taken horsewhips and pistols to editors about the treatment or maltreatment of their manuscript. This—the actual pistols—was in the old days, of course, we no longer succumb to the impulse. But it is still there, within us.” —William Faulkner