Of Faux Pas and Morals - Part 4

In case you haven't read part 3, part 2 and part 1...

It came to me like an epiphany...

That the greatest morals...

Are born...

Out of the greatest Faux pas…

We’ve all come across typos. They make us laugh or cry, depending on which side of the typo-lifecycle we are. The typo-lifecycle starts with someone in a hurry (or someone with bad spelling and spell-checker deactivated) and ends with someone with good spelling/sharp eyes/lot of time to kill. Often the “start person” is the same as the “end person”, which is a curse (because ignorance of the typo could be bliss).

Now, dear reader, that you have patiently read my dissertation on the Origin and Lifecycle of Typos, let me tell you what happened yesterday....

Team sends me an email listing the pros and cons of purchasing an expensive software. As team lead, I am supposed to make the decision and send out a purchase order.

However, the benefits of the software did not seem to justify the cost. So, after writing my standard email saying “Nice work...good research etc”, I conclude with “no decision” i.e. buying some more time to “think”.

So I write this:
Let’s think about tit.
A sense of foreboding gripped my lungs as soon as I hit Send. Was it?...Did I just? O damn!

Because it was sent to a team of writers, no one would have missed the typo (though this one time, I wished they were not as good at their work).

In my defence, I told myself “When you actually say those words, it sounds like that anyway”. But since then, I have hardly taken a break at work or even left my desk for a coffee. There was no way I could have faced anybody who had the “I know what you are thinking about, you perv” look on their face. But I can almost hear suppressed laughter doing its rounds in the office. Just hoping that the deadlines won’t let them dwell on the typo (or what it inadvertently asked them to “think about”) for too long.

Moral: Freud may NOT have had a point. But people will bring him to life everytime there is a slip (of the tongue or the keyboard). Silence is your safest bet.