Today my proofreader is not available, so I hope you’ll forgive any typos you find. As a writer and editor myself, I firmly believe that everyone needs an editor. No one is exempt. Even best-selling authors can use a little help with their peerless prose. In fact, I’ve noticed that even with a big editorial staff, mass-market publishers of paperbacks still manage to produce books with typos in them. For example, lately I’ve read more than one book that has mixed up the words flair and flare.
Flair is a natural talent or ability. Flare has to do with fire or something that spreads out. So a person can have a "flair for writing." And a skirt can flare. People do not flare, unless they are on fire. Given the context of the story, I really don’t think that’s what they were going for in the junk novels I was reading.
However, to the editors’ credit, the misuse of flair/flare was consistent throughout the book. (We editors love consistency!) All that flaring was so distracting, however, that I actually had to go look it up. I thought maybe my brain had a big cramp, and I didn’t know what I thought I knew.
As it turned out, my editorial brain is fine; I was right. Now if only people would learn that there is a difference between "effect" and "affect." My brain is often affected by typos. But sometimes reading something over and over can have no effect, so the typos live on.