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July 15, 2008

Hubris, Muprhy's Law, and real life.

Ah how shameless–the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes, but they themselves with their own reckless ways, compound their pains beyond their proper share.

--Zeus, in Homer's The Odyssey

Muphry's Law dictates that (a) if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written; (b) if an author thanks you in a book for your editing or proofreading, there will be mistakes in the book; (c) the stronger the sentiment expressed in (a) and (b), the greater the fault; (d) any book devoted to editing or style will be internally inconsistent.

--G. M. Wallace, in A Fool in the Forest, quoting Radley Balko.

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at July 15, 2008 11:59 PM

Comments

Sir--Muphry's is American; Muprhy's is English-Celtic. Either wrong version is correct. Holdunn

Posted by: Holden Oliver at July 17, 2008 05:03 PM

Muphry's Corollary: When you cite Muphry's Law in a blog post, you'll have a typo in the name of the law, if you're not careful.

Posted by: Ed. at July 17, 2008 10:58 AM

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