No typos or grammatical errors ever????

by StAnn 69 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • goldensky
    goldensky

    My disfelloshipped pro-organization (¡¡¡) brother, who keeps up with all the literature, loves to write down every single typo he comes across, just for the anecdote. The other day he gave me a list with some of them, for example:

    Apparently, they have skipped the word "not" on page 31 of the Awake of the 8th May 2004 of the English edition (I can't check that, since I only have the literature in Spanish right now).

    He says a line has been repeated twice in The Watchtower, May 15 2007, page 23.

    I'm checking, but all the others he points out are in the Spanish edition.

  • TD
    TD

    Proofreading should go beyond grammar and punctuation and catch valid sentences that may have multiple meanings. We've probably all seen newspaper headlines that can be read two ways. For example:

    "Miss Arkansas is hit with Rotary Club"

    "Church workers to replace farmer's mules"

    Both of these headlines had alternate meanings other than what was intended. Sometimes these are funny, sometimes they're off color and sometimes they're just plain gross.

    It always struck me as humorous that the 1961 NWT which JW's used for years also had a few of these:

    "John beheaded, 5000 fed" ..was a page summary in one of the gospels.

    In the concordance, "Mighty Man Mocked" was directly followed by "Mocker Mourning"

    There were a few others I think. --Nothing spelled wrong, just quirky alternate meanings besides what was intended.

  • compound complex
    compound complex

    Yes, TD:

    I remember a running head in the green NWT:

    Curdle ... Death

    It struck me as a strange way to go....

    CC

  • processor
    processor

    I never found a typo, but sometimes I read the English and German Watchtower and found translation errors. I don't remember the exact issue, but one edition said a certain distance was "around XXX kilometers" while the other language called it "nearly XXX kilometers". There were also some passages where the meaning of the German sentence was totally different than the English one, e. g. by a missing "not" or confusing two similar words.

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    TD...On that note....

  • Nathan Natas
    Nathan Natas

    I disagree with anyone who claims the WT pubs contain no errrors.

    If you run watchtower publications - especially older ones - through a spell-checker, you will be surprised at the number of misspellings and double word, e.g., "the the" that occur. The thing is that few people have the opportunity to do that. When we read a page with erros in it, many times our mind compensates for the error unless it is glaring.

    Not so with text "read" by a machine. With the proliferation of digital libraries of WT publications (both official and unofficial) , you can check this for yourself.

    They're not as perfect as they'd have you believe they are.

  • TD
    TD

    LOL ... I'm going to have to find that volume this evening

  • blondie
    blondie

    Not a typo but I can remember re-studying a WTS book and having a mix of books in the audience. Found out the WTS had tweaked it a bit without any notice to the rank and file. One elder suggested we all toss our old books and get new ones.

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    It's interesting that most of the "the the" repetitions are in the run-up to 1975:

    *** w60 12/15 p. 758 par. 25 Unity of All Men of Good Will Promised ***

    We let an interested observer of that occasion give us the the report, published in the issue of The Watchtower as of September 15, 1941, page 288, paragraph 6

    *** w68 1/1 How Great a Witness? ***

    What resulted to officers of the Society for being so energetic in preaching the Kingdom good news, and what was the the final outcome of the matter?

    *** g71 10/8 p. 6 Do You Want Relief from Life’s Pressures? ***

    WATER: “In the the past 20 years, life in our oceans has diminished 40 per cent.”—French undersea explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

    *** yb71 p. 4 Index of Countries ***

    Number 1 to 25 refer to the front endsheet and numbers 26 to 50 the the back endsheet.

    *** g73 4/8 p. 15 What About the Other Religions? ***

    He cites the occasions when 400 adherents of this religion became dissatisfied with it and petitioned the Soviet government for the the right to start a new religious organization.

    *** km 8/75 p. 7 Announcements ***

    The congregation’s permanent addresses for receiving literature, magazines and the Society’s mail should not be changed to correspond with the the presiding overseer.

    *** g93 7/8 p. 6 Marriage—Why Many Walk Out ***

    These social changes are not at all surprising to students of the Bible. This inspired book reveals that since 1914 we have been living in the “the last days,” which are “critical times hard to deal with.”

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    Looks like things were pretty sloppy in those days, judging from other repetitions like these:

    *** w59 6/15 p. 377 par. 25 Part 16—“Your Will Be Done on Earth” ***

    He foretold the end of Satan’s world and the establishment of God’s kingdom, and foretold this as one of the evidences of of its establishment in heaven.

    *** w61 6/15 p. 357 The March of World Powers in Prophecy ***

    It was in the year 607 B.C. that Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian hordes swept through Jerusalem’s famine-stricken defenses to to bring to a bloody end the 510-year existence of the kingdom of God’s chosen nation of Israel.

    *** km 3/72 p. 1 par. 7 What the Ransom Provision Stirs Us to Do ***

    Are they ready to participate in the field ministry? Some may not be ready for various reasons, but what about those who may be in in position to do so?

    *** km 9/71 p. 4 par. 2 Presenting the Good News—By Friendly Conversation ***

    One does not have to be a scientist and argue on on the level of the scholars in order to tell confidently how Jehovah created man and all other living things.

    *** g73 3/22 p. 32 Things You Ought To Know ***

    Please send me “Things in Which It Is Impossible for God to Lie” and and Life Everlasting—in Freedom of the Sons of God, for which I enclose $1.

    *** g75 8/8 p. 25 Why the Rise in Suicide? ***

    Learn his his Holy Word; it will show you that you can withstand the pressures peculiar to our times.

    *** w75 12/15 Proving Ourselves Worthy to Enter God’s New Order ***

    What must be removed from the earth first, and how was it demonstrated this this is not too big a job for the Creator?

    *** km 6/76 p. 2 Your Service Meetings ***

    Let the sisters and others comment on these questions, offering their their observations, sharing ideas with one another.

    Seems the majority of the typos were in the questions accompanying the articles, blurbs, ads, and KM items. I guess these didn't get the scrutiny that the vetted articles did. It's a much tighter ship in recent decades, likely due to advances in word processing software.

    BTW, here is one I found where a repetition is not simply a repetition but using the wrong word ("to" instead of "be"):

    *** w67 4/15 Mankind’s Millennium Under God’s Kingdom—Why Literally So ***

    A literal millennium upon the Roman Catholic Papacy was thought to to fulfilled during what time?

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit